


Rupture (fault lines and rifts)

by EmeraldTulip



Series: Shatter [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Gay Will Byers, Gen, I am tentatively adding the byeler tag bc of subtext, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Bond, Season 3 rewrite, Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper Friendship, Will Byers Has Powers, max and will unfortunately have good old shared family trauma, plus the warnings will be updated as well, we talking about FEELINGS in this one, what you got to say to that duffers, you know as the story continues and more characters appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2020-09-07 20:43:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20315740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldTulip/pseuds/EmeraldTulip
Summary: The booming movie voice has been droning on this whole time, but Will hasn’t been paying much attention—and as soon as he looks up at the screen, everything goes black.A few people gasp, taken aback by the sudden darkness.“Did the power go out?” Mike says lowly, and Will opens his mouth to respond when something like lightning hits him full force.It's the summer of 1985, and more than anything, Will and El want to put the past behind them. El is studying hard, trying to join the Party at school in the coming year, and Will is slowly readjusting to post-Upside Down life. But when a blackout sweeps through Hawkins and both feel the darkness stir once again,normalmight just have to wait.





	1. Will

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to wait to post this until I had a few more chapters fully edited, but im impatient so here we are. this is the sequel to fractures (just a crack in the glass). if you haven't read that, you probably should, but the gist of it is: el and will formed a psychic bond during the events of season 2 and this is the continuation of that. I wanted to stay as true to season 3 as possible, so you will see that general outline, but I changed some things to 1. fit the el/will psychic storyline and 2. focus more on the humanity of and platonic relationships between these characters; something I felt was lacking in the show this season.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A blackout hits Hawkins.

**June 28, 1985**

_Hey, Will?_

Will rolls over, discarding his sketchbook onto his nightstand and sticking his pencil behind his ear. _Yeah?_

El’s voice is frustrated, and in his mind’s eye he can see the way her nose is crinkled at the paper in front of her as she chews on her pen. _What’s the word for when someone is really smart? Not intelligent. The other one._

Will ponders this for a second, tucking a hand between his head and his pillow. _Knowledgeable?_ he suggests, and he feels her whoop of joy in his chest.

_Thanks! Have fun at the movies!_

The movies—

“Shit!” He scrambles to his feet, dragging his blanket to the floor with him, and shoves his shoes on. His mother is in the kitchen as he bolts outside, and he says something along the lines of _iamsolateforthemoviesihavetomeetmikeokayloveyoumombye!_ as the door slams shut behind him.

* * *

“You, good sir, are late,” Max greets him as he pedals to a stop, the neon lights turning her hair green and purple.

“Sorry,” he pants, hoisting his bike into the rack. “I lost track of time.”

Lucas shrugs. “Well, you’re not as late as Mike, anyway.”

Will frowns, casting an eye over the row of bicycles. “Isn’t that his right there?”

Before either of them can turn to examine it too closely, the mall’s doors open and Mike rushes out.

“What the hell were you doing in there?” Max asks, doing a double take as Mike approaches from the opposite of the expected direction.

“I got here early, figured I’d look around inside for a present for El,” Mike says. “Lost track of time.”

Will frowns again, because he and El have been talking a lot and El has some… _opinions_ about all this. “I thought she didn’t—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lucas interrupts, glaring at Mike. “The point is, we gotta hurry.”

“But—”

No one hears him; Mike is already back inside, and Lucas has Max by the hand and is pulling her along as well. He sighs and chases after, narrowly dodging a few mall-goers. A steady stream of _sorry_s escape Will and Lucas as the four of them make a mad dash up the escalators, and Will barely manages to pull Max out of the way of a stray elbow.

“Thanks,” she says, offering him a small smile once they get to the landing. Immediately, that smile turns to an accusatory glare. “We wouldn’t have to rush to the movie if _Mike_ wasn’t so hung up on _El_.”

“I am _not_ hung up on her!” Mike insists, turning to Lucas for support.

Lucas doesn’t give it. “Hey, man, it’s been like this all summer. _Oh, how can I convince El to date me? What can I get her so she’ll love me more? I should spend all my time doing that and ignoring all my friends!_”

Max snorts and Mike sticks his tongue out. “I don’t sound like that. And I’m not ignoring you!”

“You’re sure _trying_,” Lucas jabs back. “And it doesn’t even matter, because El _likes_ you, she’s just not gonna _date_ you until everything’s normal.”

Mike folds his arms, and Will has a sudden flashback of about ten years of Mike pouting the exact same way. “Doesn’t mean I can’t try.” He swivels on his heel and into Scoops Ahoy, where Robin is at the counter.

“Hey, dingus!” she calls over her shoulder once she spots them. “Your children are here!”

The partition slides open and Steve peers out, already looking resigned. “Again? Seriously?” Mike just obnoxiously rings the bell on the counter a couple times before Steve lets them behind the counter.

“Hi, Robin,” Will says softly as he passes, and she grins at him.

“Hey, kid. Don’t get too scared at the movies, I hear it’s a creepy one,” she teases, handing him a spoon with cookie dough ice cream on it.

He jokingly glares at her. “I won’t. And I’m not a kid.” He follows Mike out the back door into the service passage, tossing the used spoon into the trash.

“Just remember,” Steve preaches for the fifty thousandth time. “If you get me caught—”

“—we’re dead,” they all chorus back, already halfway down the hall.

Lucas giggles. “We know.”

By the time they get into the theater, the lights have already gone down, but the movie hasn’t started yet. Lucas and Max, hands still joined, pick their way down to the fourth row, and Mike appears to spot an open space. He grabs Will by the wrist and tugs him over to the fifth row, a couple seats down from the other two, and Will sinks down into the cushy seat.

“Here,” Mike whispers, tugging a package of gummy worms from his pocket and handing them to Will. “I know you like these.”

Will can’t help but smile in the dark as he takes them. “Thanks.” Out of his bag, he digs out a couple soda bottles and other snacks, passing some over to Lucas and Max.

The booming movie voice has been droning on this whole time, but Will hasn’t been paying much attention—and as soon as he looks up at the screen, everything goes black.

A few people gasp, taken aback by the sudden darkness.

“Did the power go out?” Mike says lowly, and Will opens his mouth to respond when something like lightning hits him full force.

He knows, suddenly, that the lights are out everywhere. _Everywhere_. The mall, the town, every house for miles. He knows it the same way he knows that Mike’s hand is on his wrist.

And of course, as soon as he thinks it, the warmth of Mike’s fingers disappears and Will’s next breath is acidic. The worried murmuring of movie watchers fades out, and he only hears static.

“No,” he says, only it catches in his throat before he can really utter anything. The seat he’s in turns slimy and rough, and he stumbles to his feet. Everything is _buzzing_, like there’s electricity in his very bones. _It’s not real,_ he thinks. _Just relax, it’s not real._ But then chills creep up his neck and he _swears_ he can hear someone (_something_) creeping up behind him, and he thinks, _fuck this, I’m out._

He feels so numb, but he somehow forces his feet to move, and he _runs_. Out of the theater and into the atrium, where the lights should be shining; but when he looks up all he sees is gaping blackness through the windows. Even out of the dark room, the walls seem to be closing in on him, and he moves forward once more. He’s sluggish, tripping and sliding over slimy vines, but he manages to reach the escalator—unmoving, of course—and launches himself down. He slips on the bottom step and tumbles onto his knees, catching himself with his hands, and when that sharp pain snaps through him it almost jolts him back to reason.

_It’s not real_, he reminds himself. _El closed the gate. I _watched_ her do it. This isn’t real._

He remembers, suddenly, something Mike told him once. He had been curled up on the floor of Mike’s basement, his knees tucked beneath his chin, and Mike had knelt beside him and whispered something until he came to his senses.

_“Find what _is_ real.”_

So Will closes his eyes, because nothing he sees here can be real. But the floor beneath his feet—that’s real. The feeling of a steady, albeit fast, heartbeat in his chest—that’s real. The hand on his shoulder—

“Will!”

His eyes snap open, and Mike’s worried face fills his vision. Glancing around, he notes that the lights are back on and people are milling around as if nothing happened. A few are staring at him curiously.

“What happened?” Mike asks, even though Will knows he already knows the answer. “Can you still see it?”

Will swallows, his throat raw. “No. No, I’m good.” He shrugs Mike’s hand off his shoulder, feeling instantly remorseful at the hurt look on his face. “I… I think the lights just freaked me out. I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” Mike presses. “Honestly, we can just leave Lucas and Max, have some ice cream and go home—”

“I’m _fine_, Mike,” Will insists, because while a chill lingers on his neck, he doesn’t see any flicker of the Upside Down. And if he’s honest, he’s a little embarrassed. “Let’s just go back to the movie, okay?”

Mike looks dubious, but he nods. “Okay.” He slings an arm around Will’s shoulder, and though the contact makes him shudder he won’t push him off again.

As Mike leads him back to the escalator, a voice barges into Will’s head.

_Will, what happened? I felt your… fear. And…_

_The power went out, I panicked._

_I know, it went out here too. But I thought—_

_El,_ Will interrupts her, because he’s scared to hear what she’ll say. _I’ll call you when I get home. Okay? I’m with Mike. I don’t want him to worry._

_Okay,_ she says after a beat. _Be safe._

* * *

The house is quiet when he slips inside. Jonathan’s shoes are tossed near the front door, but the light in his room is off—he’s probably sleeping. His mother isn’t in the living room, either, and her own door is shut, but there’s a note on the table with her scrawl across it telling Will that there’s leftovers in the fridge if he’s hungry.

He isn’t.

It’s nights like this that he misses the way things were. Jonathan is working all the time, now. Dustin is at camp, which leaves Will hanging around Lucas and Max, who are annoyingly joined at the hip—although they’re still well-grounded and include him, which is nice—and Mike, who has been trying all summer to convince El to go out with him. It’s a tricky thing, because El has been pouring all her time into studying, so she can join the Party at school the upcoming year. Not to mention, Hopper has been very strict about who comes and goes in the cabin. Will is allowed more than the others, but it’s still not often. He’s pretty sure Hopper has racked up a fairly high phone bill.

Speaking of phone bills.

“Sorry if I kept you up,” he says into the receiver. It’s easier to call than to have a full silent conversation—Will isn’t exactly eager to turn his nose into Niagara Falls again.

_“It’s fine, of course,” _El says, as easily as ever despite the fact that the clock says it’s ten minutes to midnight. _“I just… I thought I felt something. Something that wasn’t just you.”_

And, shit, he’d hoped she wouldn’t say that. “Me, too.” He sighs. “I was hoping I was just imagining things.”

_“But I don’t understand,”_ El continues. _“We closed the gate. We saw it. What could this be?”_

“I don’t know.” He rubs a hand over his face. “Maybe it’s the scientists they haven’t found yet. Maybe… maybe it’s another sibling of yours. I mean, we both could feel it when Kali made a big move in January.”

_“Yeah, but we haven’t heard anything since then.”_

Will sighs. “I know. But that could just mean she’s been laying low for a while. My point is, we just don’t know what caused this.”

_“Right.”_

“We’ll just have to be careful,” Will says. “Keep an eye out. Hopefully this won’t happen again.”

_“Okay.”_

“Oh. And…” he hesitates. “Can we not tell Mike? Until we know anything for sure. You know how he gets.”

For the first time, she sounds amused. _“Yes, I know. That’s fine.”_

After her little laugh, her voice trails off, and Will listens to her breathe for a moment. Their heartbeats are perfectly synched, and Will can feel where El’s finger stings from a paper cut.

_“Will? You there?”_

“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “I’m gonna sleep, okay?”

_“Okay. Me, too.”_

Will grins, just slightly. “Actually do sleep, please, El. I know you like to check the In Between, but… just rest. We’re gonna be fine. Sleep.”

She huffs playfully. _“Only because I know you’ll annoy me in my head if I don’t.”_

“Goodnight, El,” he laughs. “See you tomorrow.”

_“See you tomorrow, Will.”_

The line clicks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> side note: the "big move" I mention kali making may or may not end up being a separate one-shot. it's only relevant and only mentioned because El and Will can both still feel these upside down-related ripple effects - hence them possibly attributing the blackout to her.
> 
> anyway, the next chapter will be up as soon as humanly possible! I hope you enjoyed!


	2. El

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dustin's welcome home party goes awry, because of course it does, but Mike seems to have other plans for him and El.
> 
> El, herself, has some thoughts on the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so im not completely terrible at meeting deadlines! not a lot to say until after, so. enjoy the chapter!

**June 29, 1985**

“El!” Hop calls as El shoves her head under her pillow, hitting the alarm button without touching it. For the fourth time.

“Tired,” she yells back.

She can hear his muffled laugh. “Try having a job.”

“Don’t want to.”

“Would it change anything if I said eggos?” Hopper asks, and El sighs, because yes. That does change something. Just a little bit.

Wearily, she slides off her bed, her feet hitting the floor. She takes the plate Hop offers her when she walks into the kitchen and sinks into her chair.

He sits down across from her. “Did you not sleep well?”

She makes a seesaw motion with her hand. Max taught her that—it means _so-so_. “Will was upset.” She reaches for her fork, then stops. “Don’t tell Joyce.”

The corners of his mouth twitch down. “El…”

“Please,” she says. “Trust me.”

And she knows he does, because his eyes soften. “Okay.” He takes a sip of his coffee and El digs into her waffle. “You’re going to Dustin’s soon, right?”

She nods. Dustin comes back from camp—a concept she still doesn’t fully understand, but Lucas had been very patient when explaining—today, and Mike had suggested a surprise for him. “At one-fifteen.”

“Right.” He takes another gulp of coffee. “Is Will still coming to get you or am I driving?”

“Will had to go get something from the store,” she explains, recalling the faint memory of Will talking in her ear when she was still groggy, “so Mike is coming.”

That seems to illicit a reaction from Hop—his eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. “Mike?” His fingers tap on the table. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“But—“

“You know the rules,” he says, and there is sympathy on his face. “You still have to be careful. Will is allowed here sometimes because of your whole bond thing, but the scientists know Mike. If any of them are out there, they could recognize him and find you.”

“But that was two years ago,” she protests. “He looks different. I look different. And it’s just for one day.”

“El, I don’t know—”

“How am I going to go to school if I can’t even go outside?” she challenges.

He opens his mouth, then closes it. He takes another sip of coffee. “I suppose that’s a good point.”

El stifles her celebratory grin, just in case it’s too soon. “So…”

“Fine,” Hopper relents. “But be _careful_.”

* * *

Mike knocks on the door at twelve-forty exactly.

“Hey,” he says when she opens the door, and he sounds a little breathless. Probably from biking.

“Hi,” she replies with a grin. “Bye!” she calls over her shoulder before leaping down the steps.

“You’re hyper,” Mike notes, closing the door behind him. “You sleep well or something?”

She shrugs. “No, actually, but I’m excited now.” Mike picks his bike up from where it had been leaning against the porch railing and starts walking, and El falls into step beside him. “How’d _you_ sleep?”

Mike sighs. “It was okay. I was worried all night…” He trails off.

“About what?”

El has been getting better recognizing expressions, but she can’t quite name the one that crosses over Mike’s face now. “Will. He had an episode at the movies last night. And that hasn’t happened in a while.”

“He called me last night,” El says carefully, because she doesn’t want to divulge too much information—Will asked her not to, after all. “I think he’ll be okay.”

They arrive at the main road and Mike gets on his bike, El clambering on behind him. It’s a tight squeeze, because Mike has shot up several inches and this is the same bike they were riding last year, but they’ll fit. “Yeah,” Mike says. “I hope so.”

He kicks off and they speed down the road, and warm air swirls around them. El rests her head against Mike’s shoulder to shield her face from the wind. This is her first real summer—and if she’s honest, it’s been pretty lonely. Maybe, since Hop let her go out with Mike today, he’ll let her go outside more often.

She has held up her end of the bargain, after all: she’s spent the past few months studying like she never knew was possible, trying to make sure she’s ready for school in September. She hasn’t been too distracted by Will in her head—or Mike, which had originally seemed like what Hop was most worried about. And if she’s honest, she’s proud of that. When, a month after the Snow Ball, Mike had approached her about becoming a couple, she said no. Not because she didn’t like him, because she _definitely _does. But she’s watched enough bogus TV to know that rushing into relationships doesn’t work, and Mike deserves better than a girl who can’t even leave her house.

_When things are normal,_ she had promised Mike. Promised herself. _When things are normal, then yes. But not now._

Mike startles her out of her thoughts with a small cough, jostling her slightly. “Whatcha thinking about?”

She hums. “Being normal.”

“Ah.” He falls silent for a moment. “I mean… what you said about normal. Are we—”

She knows what he’s trying to say. “No, Mike,” she sighs, and she shifts so that her forehead is pressed to the knob of his spine. “Not yet.” He doesn’t say anything, and El suddenly feels awkward—like she’s _made_ it awkward. “Are you mad at me?”

“No!” he yelps hurriedly. “No, El, I’m not. I’m just… thinking.”

So she closes her eyes, tightens her grip around his waist, and lets him think.

* * *

She latches on to Will as soon as he arrives, a bag of little plastic horns in hand.

“Hey,” he greets her with a smile, and he looks miles better than how his mind felt last night. “You got here okay?”

“Yes, William,” Mike says, answering Will’s question instead. “I know how to ride a bike, and El knows how to sit on one.”

“I can ride one too, you know,” she interjects. “I just don’t have one yet.”

Max and Lucas are already inside, having used the spare key with Mrs. Henderson’s permission, and Lucas ushers them in. Max’s radio is sitting on the table, and every few moments a few staticky words slip through—Dustin must be getting close.

“So, El,” Max raises an eyebrow challengingly. “Are you all good to mess with his robots?”

“Uh huh,” she nods. “You made the sign, right?”

“_I_ made the sign,” Lucas replies, poking his girlfriend in the ribs, and she swats at his hand. “And she watched me do it.”

Will makes a face that says _ugh, young love_ at El from behind Max’s back, and El fights back a giggle. “Okay. Now we wait?”

Mike opens his mouth to respond, but at that moment the door slams open. Thankfully, they’re in the next room, but they all quickly flatten themselves against the wall.

“I’m going to unload the car, Dusty!” they hear Mrs. Henderson yell, the door closing behind her, and that’s El’s cue. She closes her eyes, sending out a pulse and finding several pockets of electricity around Dustin. Will’s fingers brush against her wrist and there’s a _pop_ of static, and then the toys rattle to life.

“Now,” Mike whispers after a moment, and El opens her eyes, letting her hold on the power go. He’s glancing around the corner and then steps out, which El takes to mean that the coast is clear, and they all file out after him. Lucas unfurls the banner as Max silently counts down, holding up three fingers. Two. One.

“Surprise!” Mike, Max, and Lucas shout, Will giggling around a party horn behind them, and Dustin turns around with a shriek.

The noise startles El and she steps back, very bravely positioning herself behind Will and Mike as Dustin takes aim at them all with… a can.

The substance sprays directly into Lucas’ eyes, and his scream is perhaps even more ear-piercing than Dustin’s.

“Holy _shit_!” Max yelps, whacking Dustin’s arm so he drops the can. “Welcome the hell home, Dustin!”

Dustin’s eyes are wide, but even as he stares at them in fear, a smile creeps over his face. “I _knew_ you didn’t forget me!”

* * *

“… static powered car,” Dustin prattles on, the floor around him becoming more and more cluttered as devices flood out of his bag.

El picks it up as Dustin continues to talk, flinching slightly when a loud _ow!_ comes from the kitchen, where Max is helping Lucas clean his face of hair spray. She hands the car to Will. “You made all these at camp?”

“Yup!” he says proudly. “But you haven’t even seen the coolest thing yet.” He reaches behind him and drags forward a bag, unzipping it to reveal a mess of cables and plastic squares.

Mike squints at it, tilting his head. “What… is it?”

“It looks like a ham radio,” Will observes.

“I call it Cerebro,” Dustin explains. “And it is a radio, nice one Will. _But_ it’s not just any radio. It’s capable of reaching distances previous through impossible. Say, Utah.”

El’s been studying geography, so she knows Utah, and she knows that’s far. “Wow,” she says.

“Thanks!” Dustin chirps. “It still needs to get assembled, and I was hoping you guys could help me. I already know where it needs to go.”

Will shrugs. “I’m down. El?”

“Yeah,” she grins. “Sounds fun.”

Dustin claps his hands together. “Great!” he says. “Then I can introduce you to my girlfriend.” He stands and heads to the kitchen, presumably to talk to Lucas and Max.

Mike frowns. “Did he say—“

“—girlfriend,” Will and El agree.

* * *

“Just a little further, guys,” Dustin encourages as they climb up the hill, and for once he’s not complaining about being tired.

That honor today falls to Mike, who is flushed and sweaty. With his long legs, one would think he could make the trek just as well as the rest of him, but El can feel annoyance roll off of him in waves. “You’ve been saying that for like an hour.”

Will, a couple feet ahead of them, turns to face him, walking backwards a few steps. “It’s been ten minutes, Mike.”

“You’re only out of breath because of all the air you’ve wasted talking,” Max jabs, and Mike splutters.

El rolls her eyes fondly, turning back to face him and holding a hand out. “Come on,” she says with a grin, and Mike takes her hand. She pulls, and he stumbles, but she catches him with a twitch of her other hand.

“Thanks,” he says.

Once they reach the top of the hill, she goes to let go of his hand, but his fingers tighten around hers. She glances up at him quizzically, and he blushes, but he doesn’t let go. El doesn’t mind, honestly.

“So, how do we do this?” Will asks as Lucas chugs down water, handing another bottle to Max.

Dustin’s already unpacking his bag. “It’s really easy. I have it mostly assembled, it just needs to be put up. If you guys could help, then I can hopefully get ahold of Suzie!”

Will and Max both sit around the bag, pulling components out, and El starts forward, but Mike’s hand tugs her back.

“Hey,” he says breathlessly. He really must have lost to the trek. “Do you wanna get out of here?”

She smiles at him, confused. “We just got here.”

“No, I know,” he grins. “I mean… do you want to go somewhere? Without the others?”

“With… out them?”

“Yeah,” he says, but the bright expression is sliding off his face. “Because, you know, we haven’t really gotten to hang out. The two of us.”

“Oh,” she says. “But… why?”

The last of his smile slips away. “I mean, if you don’t want to be around me, fine—“

“I didn’t say that!” She can feel a few pairs of eyes on them, now, though they are all pretending they aren’t staring. Not Will, though. He’s looking right at them. She lowers her voice. “Mike, I didn’t say that.”

“Okay,” he says in surrender, holding up his hands. “Okay, sorry. Really. So… is that a no?”

And he does look sorry. And sad. El squeezes her eyes shut, then sighs. “Mike. Let’s go.”

That seems to do the trick, because his face lights up again. He turns to the Party, already tugging El back down the hill. “I’m gonna take El home, guys. Curfew.”

“Good luck,” she calls back to them, and she feels a weird twist of anger in her gut that isn’t hers.

_I’m sorry,_ she tries to say, because Mike’s lie is such bullshit (word learned from Nancy, not allowed in the house), but Will pulls the metaphorical curtains closed on her. She glances over her shoulder, but he’s slouched over the bag, picking out pieces more determinedly than ever.

* * *

In all honesty, El isn’t sure she would be enjoying herself even if she didn’t feel so awful.

Mike buys her a popsicle from the grocery store, which is nearly deserted—Will has said before that it’s because of the _mall downtown_, that it’s making people like his mom lose business. She asks Mike about it, but he just shrugs. She also asks about visiting Joyce, because they’re nearby, but he shrugs again and mumbles something along the lines of _maybe later_.

Mike walks his bike instead of riding it, slowing his pace to match El’s shorter strides as she tries the popsicle. The red color tastes good, but the white doesn’t, and Mike sees the face she’s making.

“No good?” he asks, almost sounding disappointing.

She shrugs. “Do you want it?”

And it goes like that, for two hours. Mike takes her to places that she would have dreamed off seeing just a few months ago, but the streets are empty and quiet. And it’s… _nice_, to hang out with Mike. It is. But there’s a tug on the base of her spine, a dark cloud following her that she can’t shake off, because it’s _Will’s_ and he’s a part of her.

What’s even worse: she wishes she’d told Mike _no_. She thought she’d been getting better at that—she said _no_ when Hopper suggested waiting another year for school, she said _no_ when Dr. Owens had recommended severing her and Will’s bond for good, she said _no_ when Mike asked her out the first time.

And somehow she still ended up here, walking the desolate streets with Mike Wheeler, wishing she was back on the hill with their friends.

He ends up taking her home, because she really does have a curfew (even if it isn’t as early as Mike told the others it was). Hop isn’t home when they arrive, anyway, so El unlocks the door and invites Mike in—it’s _good etiquette_, Joyce told her once. It’s the nice thing to do.

So Mike climbs up the steps, and El feels weird once he passes through the doorway. The only people who have been in the cabin other than her and Hop have been Will and Joyce. She’s allowed to go out, now, which means she doesn’t really invite people over—that, and Hopper calls it a _safety issue_. So to see Mike, his awkwardly-proportioned limbs making themselves immediately comfortable inside her house… it’s strange.

“Can I see your room?” he asks, and El nods, leading him over. She steps through the door and Mike peers over her shoulders, examining the walls. “You put my poster up.”

She looks at the one in question—the strange creature in a land of dust and rocks. It used to hang in Mike’s basement. “Yeah,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I?” Surrounding the poster is a few tacked-up drawings from Will, Max’s address and phone number scribbled on a post-it note, and some picture frames from Nancy (some holding actual pictures, mostly of her and Hop, some containing drawings of her own).

El likes her room. It’s the first place that really feels like home, mostly because it’s the only place she’s ever put together herself. Joyce offered to move the furniture in, and Will had volunteered to help organize everything, but El said no (another time she thought she was getting better). Instead, Will sat on her bed and watched as she moved her music player from the dresser to the bookshelf and back, humming in approval when she asked if it looked okay.

“I like it,” Mike says, and El realizes she’s been zoned out for a good minute.

“Me, too,” she agrees, and she decides that the silence is somehow too loud. Turning her head, she flicks the music player on, and a song she doesn’t recognize yet plays. _Will’s Mage Mix for El,_ it reads—upside down, of course, because he wrote it the wrong way so she can only read it properly if she hangs off the end of her bed.

Mike grins as the music gets louder. “I like this song! You’ve got good taste.”

_Not me, Will,_ she wants to tell him, but he’s already humming along as he peruses the bookshelf, so she sits cross-legged on the bed instead.

Mike gets bored by her bookshelf pretty quickly, his long legs quickly bringing him around the side of the bed so that he can sit next to her. “So,” he says, and she looks up at him.

“So,” she parrots, because she’s seen Max do it to Lucas and it makes him pout every time.

Mike doesn’t pout, though, he just looks at her. “I just wanted to talk. About stuff.”

“You’re mad at me,” El states, because she isn’t an idiot. She remembers what Mike was talking about on their way over to Dustin’s.

If she’s completely honest with herself, there are so many reasons she has lined up to give to Mike when he asks her to be his girlfriend again. One: Hopper says _absolutely not_. Two: she needs to focus as much as possible on studying, because she’s entering high school in September and it’s going to be really, really bad if she can’t tell the difference between California and Texas. Three: she just… needs some time. Because _yes_, she likes Mike, but she doesn’t know what that means yet and life isn’t normal and she isn’t ready—for a relationship, a boyfriend, _Mike_. She just isn’t.

“I said I wasn’t!” he protests, putting his hands palm up in a placating gesture.

El rolls her eyes (a habit picked up from Max and Lucas). “You lied. And don’t tell me that _friends don’t lie_, because I heard you back on that hill.” He opens his mouth to respond, but she’s quicker with words—for _once_. “Mike. They’re _mad_ at us, don’t you see? They’re our friends, too, we can’t just leave them!” _You can’t just leave them,_ her mind supplies snidely, _and you can’t just drag me with you. _For a moment she almost hopes it’s Will, because even if those thoughts are cruel and unfair to Mike, at least he’d be talking. (It isn’t him.)

“They _know_ that we haven’t gotten to spend any time alone together,” he refutes. “They can’t be mad!”

“Well they _are_,” El snaps, because even if she has a direct link only to Will’s emotions, it’s pretty obvious. “Mike, you can’t treat them like they’re second. We’re not dating—“

“But we should be!” Mike explodes, just as the tape runs out.

Silence fills the room for a moment, and El takes a breath. “You aren’t _listening_, Mike. I only _kind of_ know what dating _is_.”

“That’s why I can teach you,” he pleads. “El, come on—“

And, holy mother of god (quote picked up from Dustin), sometimes she has a hard time remembering why she likes this boy. Then she looks into his eyes, the soft brown they are, and some rationality floods back. “Please, Mike,” she says, and she takes his hands. His fingers are long and thin, pale and freckled, and they slide against her rough palms. “Until things are normal. Just be patient.”

_Patient_. That’s a Hop word. He threw it around a lot, last year, when things weren’t so simple yet. _Just wait a little longer, El. You’ll get out soon, El. You’ll be normal soon, El. Just be patient._ And El knows the frustration that comes with that word. But the difference then is that she had no idea how long she would have to be patient for. Mike? He just has to be patient for a few more months. That’s all she’s asking for.

“What difference will a few months make?” Mike persists, and in his argumentative fervor he’s leaning further and further into her space.

_A lot of difference,_ El thinks. _It did last time._

“Mike,” she says instead. “I’m serious.”

He’s going to keep arguing. She knows Mike and how stubborn he can get—the argument is about to get really heated.

Or it would, had the door not _flown_ open.

“Wheeler,” Hop says cooly. “I thought I heard somebody else in here.”

From behind Mike’s back, El shoots him a grateful, albeit _shut up_ look. “Mike brought me home from Dustin’s,” she tells him. Not a lie.

“How was it?” he asks, and El could answer but she knows he’s asking Mike.

Mike stumbles over his words once he realizes El isn’t talking. “I—uh, it was. Good! Good to see him. We had fun.”

Hop nods. “Good, good.” He takes another step into the room. “Won’t your mother be upset if you’re home late?”

El has to stifle a laugh at how quickly Mike gets to his feet. “Yes, sir, she probably will. I, uh, should be going then.” He looks back at El. “So… see you tomorrow?”

He’s persistent, she’ll give him that. “I’ll be busy,” she says. Also not a lie—she doesn’t actually have plans, but she thinks she’ll go to Will’s tomorrow.

“Oh. Kay.” He shuffles out of the room, Hopper watching him go, and once the front door clicks shut a grin finally spreads across his face. “That kid…” he chuckles.

El laughs with him. “He’s not so bad,” she defends him weakly. “How much did you hear?”

He shrugs. “Enough. You didn’t sound very happy.”

El shrugs, too. “It was just a disagreement. I compromised.”

“That’s my girl.” He ruffles her hair, and she pretends to try to push him off. “Go to sleep, okay? None of that Void stuff, if you want to go out with your friends you have to be well-rested.”

“Okayyyyyyyy,” she relents, flopping down onto her bed.

“Goodnight, El,” he says, and suddenly he looks at her with an expression on his face that she can’t quite name. Like how Joyce looks at Will, sometimes, like after they closed the gate and Will’s body woke up and El came back to Joyce huddled over his frail form. _Like a parent,_ her brain supplies, and something in her chest twists.

“Night,” she says.

* * *

“Will,” she says, approaching the makeshift barrier Will has erected between them. It’s a heavy metal curtain, still bending under her fingers but not enough so that she can pass through. She lets a palm hover above it. “Will, I’m sorry.”

There’s no response and El sighs, leaning away from the sheet. Either Will is ignoring her, or he’s built a sturdy enough barrier that it will only come down when he wants it to. She isn't sure which is worse.

“Will,” she tries once more, and when he still doesn’t answer, she lifts a hand and tries to knock.

_Zap!_

A chill runs down her spine, and suddenly she can hear the march of tiny feet in her ear. _Spreading_, something that isn’t her or Will says. _Building. Been waiting for long enough._ She realizes with a start that there’s still static running down her arm, and she can feel the numbness consuming her face.

She pulls her fingers back with a gasp of pain. Bringing her hand to her face, she can see the black marks emanating from her knuckles down the back of her hand.

_What the hell?_ she asks, to no one in particular. That shock didn’t feel like Will.

“Will!” she yells, not daring to get any closer to the curtain, but her voice just bounces back at her.

He isn’t coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just in case the timeline escaped you (it did to me too lol) - this is all in one day. when el tries to contact will thats around the time hes leaving dustin and cerebro. yes I am 100% on board with the headcanon that will has electricity powers and thats why cerebro didnt work while he was around it, because he was mad about el and mike leaving and so he inadvertently caused the radio to malfunction. but I wont get into that.  
also! sorry if mike came off as super pushy this chapter, it just feels like if he wasnt dating el this is what he would be like. hell get better dont worry.  
anyway, thanks for reading!!


	3. Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will continues to experience lapses in consciousness, only made worse when he's dragged to the mall to help find Mike an apology gift for El. Radios are acting up, watches are breaking, escalators are freezing, and Will keeps hearing _something_ in his head despite the fact he's blocking out El.
> 
> Mike is so focused on his not-girlfriend, of course, he doesn't seem to notice any of this.
> 
> Something has to give.

**June 29, 1985**

Max and Lucas leave around ten to catch a movie, leaving Will to watch over Dustin alone. He’s still fiddling with the knobs, calling for a girlfriend that Will is starting to doubt will answer.

Or maybe he’s just being pessimistic.

“You wanna take a crack at it, Byers?” Dustin offers, clearly trying to mask his concern.

Honestly? Will doesn’t. He’s still pissed about El and Mike leaving so early, his ears are buzzing so loudly he’s getting a headache (and perhaps that’s his own fault, pouring so much energy into keeping El out of his head), and the chills that have been running up and down his spine ever since the blackout are only worsening. But Dustin looks so dejected, and Will thinks that maybe—just maybe—this is the closest he’ll get to a friend understanding.

He reaches over to the radio, Dustin shifting out of the way, but as soon as his fingers touch the first button, a sting of static jolts up his arm.

“Fuck!” he yelps, yanking his hand back, and Dustin makes a surprised noise. Will holds his hand up to his face, because that was worse than any electric shock he’s ever felt despite it being a ham radio. He can’t see much in the dark, but he thinks his hand is redder than normal. For a moment, his eyes seem to play a trick on him—he sees the jagged lines of lightning illuminate on his palm, white-hot and angular. Then he blinks, and the image disappears, turning into an imprint on the inside of his eyelids.

Dustin frowns at him. “You okay, dude? What happened?”

“Shocked me,” Will mumbles. Just his luck. “Look, Dustin, I’m sorry…” Dustin’s face falls, and Will almost can’t finish. “I have to go.” He’s already way too late for curfew as it is, his mother expected him home ages ago.

“Right, yeah,” Dustin says, his voice flat. “Of course.”

Will scrambles to make it up to him, because Dustin _just_ got back and already he’s being let down. “Maybe, tomorrow… we can hang out? Play D&D?”

A small smile works its way onto Dustin’s face. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

And it doesn’t feel like enough, but Will waves and makes his way down the hill. The white noise in his head seems to fade with each step, but there are still goosebumps on his neck and an angry pit in his stomach.

* * *

**June 30, 1985**

“Bye, Mom!” Jonathan shouts as he rushes out the door, clearly ducking his face to try to obscure the lipstick smears as if he hasn’t already been caught.

Will knows Nancy has been sneaking in a lot. Before she was dating his brother, he wouldn’t have minded so much—after all, Mike came over all the time—but now? It’s getting kind of annoying.

He could handle it, though, if not for his mother’s pointed glances every time she’s reminded that _Jonathan has a girlfriend_. For instance, she shoots Will a pointed look as she sits down at the table. He just rolls his eyes and makes a gagging gesture at her, because between Jonathan and Mike (and, to a lesser extent, Lucas), Will’s been around far too many lovestruck boys; he’d love it if his mom stopped reminding him of that.

“You’ll feel differently when you fall in love,” she says offhandedly, and Will clenches his jaw. His fingers still prickle from the previous night’s electric shock, like a pins and needles feeling, but he rubs his hands together and cracks his knuckles, the sensation lessening.

“I’m not… gonna fall in love,” he mutters, stabbing his scrambled eggs just a little too forcefully. _Repress the hell out of that one._

His mother eyes him oddly. “Mmh. Okay.”

Because, if he’s being honest—and he’s really been trying to, lately—_falling in love_ means something different to him than it does to someone like Jonathan. Not to mention that _falling in love_ means all the grown up stuff: dates, prom, then college or even living together, all that shit. Will doesn’t even want to _begin_ to think about it.

And if he’s really honest—really, truly honest—he’s starting to think that he already—

His mother taps her fork against her plate. “So, you got home pretty late last night.”

It turns out that she actually isn’t upset that he had gotten home past curfew—she’s so un-upset, in fact, that she puts up no fight when he asks to go to the Sinclair’s house. He supposes it’s a sign of positive change.

He bikes up Mirkwood and contemplates talking to El on the way, but if he’s going to keep on this self-honesty streak, he might as well admit to himself that he’s still mad. Because it’s so rare for her to hang out with the Party, and one of the few times she does, she and Mike run off and do their own thing. And _lie_ about it. Will knows what Mike said was bullshit. He knows El’s schedule like the back of his hand—it’s like the Party forgets, sometimes, that their minds are sewn together so tightly they almost can’t tell whose is whose anymore. So why even bother lying?

Before he knows it, he’s at the doorstep—but Lucas is already outside.

“Hey, Will!” Lucas chirps. He seems to be in a good mood, at least, as he takes a few steps down the street.

“Hey,” Will replies uncertainly. “Where are you going?”

“Mike’s,” Lucas replies as though it’s obvious. “We both radioed you, you didn’t respond so we figured you were just going to come over.”

Will frowns down at the radio strapped to his bike. On a hunch, he checks the power switch, but it’s flipped on. “I didn’t hear anything. Maybe I was out of range.”

Lucas just shrugs. “Doesn’t matter now. Let’s go.” They walk a few doors over to Mike’s and it’s his disgruntled face that greets them at the door.

“Good, you’re here,” he says in lieu of a greeting. “I have a big fucking problem.” Instead of explaining, he leads them down to the basement, slamming the door behind them.

“Michael!” his mother chastises from the kitchen, and Will feels bad for her (Mike has never been the most considerate or quiet of sons), but Mike pays it no mind.

“El and I had a fight last night,” he finally says, flopping onto the couch.

Lucas glances at Will, a sort of _you hear this guy_ expression on his face. “Okay, so?”

Mike straightens up to glare at him. “What do you mean, _so_?”

“I mean _so_, Mike,” Lucas says impatiently. “What’s the big deal?”

Mike seems incredulous. “The big deal is that she won’t even talk to me! I called her this morning, she answered, then hung up!” He turns to Will, eyes wide and pleading. “Will, do you think you can see where she is? If she’s mad?”

“You want me to _what_?” Will says, something angry twisting in his stomach. “I can’t _spy_ on her!” Because he’s mad at her, yes, but he will _not_ exploit their link so that Mike can get a girlfriend.

Mike looks at him like _he’s_ the unreasonable one. “Sure you can. You did it to the Mind Flayer.”

God, Mike is _such_ an idiot. “Yeah, I mean, I _can_. But I’m not gonna.”

“Will—“

“Mike, _no_! Are you crazy?” Will yelps, and he’s starting to feel a little bad for El. Maybe it hadn’t been her idea to leave last night; Mike does have a talent for getting his friends to do things they don’t necessarily want to do.

“Mike,” Lucas interrupts, like he can feel the tension building toward a full-blown argument. “You don’t need a psychic to fix this. You’re being stupid.” Lucas certainly doesn’t mince his words, a trait Will wishes he could develop when it comes to this infuriating boy. “Just _apologize_, then maybe she’ll talk to you.”

“What am I supposed to apologize _for_?” Mike demands. “I didn’t _do_ anything!”

_I’m sure you did,_ Will thinks, the same moment Lucas exclaims, “I know you didn’t!”

“Then why—“

“You just have to,” Lucas insists. “Come on.” He grab’s the shoulder of Mike’s shirt and pulls, dragging him up the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Will asks, wobbling on his heel as he spins around. “What are—”

* * *

The mall, apparently.

“Just find her something that says _I’m sorry_,” Lucas explains, and Mike frowns. The escalators have jerked to a stop, likely a remnant of the recent blackout, so they push their way up the motionless steps through the crowd to the upper level.

“Like something that literally says _I’m sorry_?”

Will rubs his temples, because his head hurts, and Mike Wheeler is an idiot. But Lucas seems to be willing to answer any question Mike has, chattering all the while, and Will is left to trail behind them. His eyes burn, and the white noise he’d been hearing on the hill with Dustin begins to amp back up.

“Hold on,” Lucas says suddenly, stopping in his tracks. “I see something for Max. I’ll be right back!” He darts off into a store, leaving Will standing next to a still-perplexed Mike.

With a heavy sigh, Will sinks down onto a planter box. His neck is beginning to itch again, and he digs his fingernails into his skin as deeply as he can without drawing blood. He just wants to go home, away from all these people—maybe draw, or play D&D, or make some mixtapes. _Anything_ that doesn’t have to be done at the mall.

“You okay?” Mike asks after a moment, and Will looks up blindly.

“Yeah,” he says, shaking off the chill. “Yeah.”

Mike sits down next to him. “You’re quiet today.”

Will wrinkles his nose in confusion. “Aren’t I always?”

Mike shrugs. “I don’t think so. Not around me, at least.” He lets out a huff. “I am sorry for earlier. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that to El. You’re… not a toy, I guess.”

“Well noticed, Michael,” Will says dryly. “You’re goddamn Nancy Drew.” But he does appreciate the apology. If Mike had asked in a quieter voice, if he’d pressed for Will to use the In-Between to spy on El… if Mike had asked just once more, Will might have done it. And he wouldn’t have forgiven himself.

Mike whacks him gently on the arm, face flushing. “Oh, shut up.”

Abruptly, all sound cuts out. The bustle of the crowds vanishes, Mike’s voice fades away, even the lingering white noise is gone; and all Will can hear is the pounding of his blood in his head. Then—

_—girl is dangerous—koshka—siniy—zheltyy na Zapade—the key—_

“Shit!” he cries, a bolt of sharp pain cutting through his head. Noise explodes back into his reality, a loud ringing sound like feedback echoing in his ears.

“Holy _shit_,” Mike is yelling, shaking his shoulder. Will realizes all at once that he’s hunched over, hands covering the sides of his head. “Will, are you okay?”

Will shrugs him off, Mike’s touch burning with static even through the sleeve of his shirt, shaking his head to clear the fog. “Yeah. I’m good. Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Mike says instantly, concern etched into every line on his scrunched up face. “What the hell happened?”

Will shakes his head again. “I… you know when your ears suddenly ring, like in your head, even if there’s no actual noise?”

“I guess?”

“It was that,” Will explains, “but worse than it’s ever felt before.” He takes in Mike’s expression, and it’s one he knows well: _drop everything to help Will._ He saw it just two days ago, at the movies.

It feels unreasonably similar to last year; Halloween. And this _isn’t_ that—Will doesn’t need Mike to derail his own plans just because Will had a headache. Not again. “Mike, I’m _fine_. I think it’s one of those things that just happens. I already can’t even feel it.”

_I’ll just go home,_ he’s about to say. _You can stay with Lucas. I’m good._

Then Lucas walks outside, says, “Mike! There’s something in here I think El might like, come look!” And Mike stands, offers Will a smile and a hand to pull him up, and Will can’t turn that down.

* * *

Mike doesn’t seem to be worried about Will anymore. _Which is good, dumbass,_ he tries to tell himself, shoving down the rebellious part of him that wants to admit to not minding Mike’s fussing.

He and Lucas, already armed with ice cream, are currently watching Mike argue with Robin over how many sample spoons is too many. Scoops is fairly empty, since it’s still relatively early, but there is one patron in the corner who keeps shooting them dirty looks. Will buries his face in his hands, hoping he looks more exasperated than in pain—the white noise is back, buzzing in the front of his skull. He doesn’t want Mike to worry.

“Steve!” Robin finally shouts. “Get your ass out here and wrangle your children!” She smacks a hand on the panel that separates the back room from the front of the store, and Steve yanks it open, looking disgruntled.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says, face devoid of much interest. “Dustin, your friends are here.”

Will perks up at that. He’s been wondering where Dustin has been—he had said _see you tomorrow_, after all, but Will hasn’t heard a thing from him. “Dustin?”

“Hey!” the boy in question calls, ducking out from behind the counter and into the main room. “I’ve been trying to radio you all morning!”

Mike frowns, leaning against the cash register. Robin swats him off. “We haven’t heard anything from the radios since we got here.”

“Maybe it’s the battery,” Will suggests, tossing his now-empty cup into the trash.

Dustin shakes his head. “No, I put in new ones the other day. You guys probably just aren’t on the right frequency. Oh!” He cuts himself off, a spark of excitement lighting in his eyes. “I heard something cool on Cerebro last night, though! I recorded it, Steve and I have been working on figuring it out—”

“Maybe later, Dustin,” Lucas suggests, interrupting him. “We’re kind of on a mission right now.” Steve’s eyebrow raises, a silent message of _go on_, and Lucas does so. “Mike’s trying to get El to go out with him, he needs to buy her a present.”

“Wait,” Dustin frowns. “But you guys ran off yesterday. You’ve had all summer, you _aren’t_ dating yet?”

“That’s what I said!” Mike exclaims, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “But Lucas is right, we should get going. We’ll see you later, though, good luck with your radio!”

Will doesn’t really want to be helping Mike woo El. He’d rather listen to Dustin talk about his cool radio, hang out with Steve and Robin. But Mike grins over his shoulder and gestures to the door, an implicit invitation, and Will feels himself step toward him. The buzzing in his ears fades slightly as he moves away from the counter, and maybe that’s a sign? “I’ll see you later, Dustin,” he says weakly.

Damn. Maybe this is how El felt yesterday.

* * *

“Mike, just face it,” Will finally says. “You don’t have enough money for _anything_, let alone something that’s gonna do the impossible.”

They’ve been wandering around the mall for over an _hour_. Will's watch has suddenly stopped working, but he doesn't need it to know he's getting impatient. Frankly, Will just wants to go back to Mike’s basement and play D&D, even if Dustin is busy. Anything is better than watching Mike pick over every item with an inexpert eye and repeatedly ask, _will she like this? I don’t think this is her style, huh. El would like this but it’s too expensive!_

Mike turns to frown at him. “What do you mean, the _impossible_?”

They’re on the ground floor, and Will sighs, turning to the doors. They slide open automatically, and hot air blasts him in the face as he stalks outside.

“Hey!” Mike calls, chasing after him, Lucas on his heels. “Hey, _Will_, what do you mean?”

“He probably means that you talk to much,” someone says, and the three of them spin around to find Max—and El. They’re both holding ice cream cones. There’s something different about the image before him, and Will realizes after a moment that El is wearing a jumpsuit he’s never seen before—it suits her.

Mike’s eyes widen, instantly focusing in on El. “What are you doing here?”

“Hanging out,” she says easily, and upon hearing her voice Will’s resolve crumbles.

_I’m sorry,_ he says, and he can feel the waves of relief coming off of her as the wall between them breaks down. _I’m sorry for shutting you out. I was mad._

_I deserved it,_ she laughs, the corner of her mouth twitching up, and then the rest of Will’s memories of the day finally sink in for her. He can feel the exact moment her mood changes from _standoffish_ to _angry_.

She looks at Mike with a tight jaw. “You were here for _me_.”

“No!” Mike says, but then he sees the look on Will’s face—guilty, no doubt—and his gaze darkens. “Will, you _told_ her?”

And, for fuck’s sake, Will is tired of this. “I don’t _tell_ her anything, Mike,” he snaps. “She just knows. She’s not stupid.”

“Yeah, I’m _not_ stupid, and I _know_ that I asked you not to do this!” El exclaims, and her own memories of the previous evening begin to flood into Will’s neural pathways. “I thought I told you I need time. Not… not…” She struggles with the word for a moment before Will silently sounds it out. “Not a guilt-trip!”

Mike’s eyes, impossibly, go even wider. “El, it wasn’t a guilt-trip, I swear, I was—I was just looking for something for you because I didn’t want you to be mad at me anymore, you _know_ what we talked about and I guess I just thought—“

“You thought wrong,” El says coldly, and Will catches Max’s eye. She lifts her eyebrows at him, seemingly impressed.

“El—”

She steps forward and Mike falls silent. “Max is right. You talk too much. And you never listen.” She shakes her head. “I hate that you don’t listen.” There’s a screech of tires behind her, and she glances over her shoulder before looking back at Mike. “I can’t be with someone who does that.”

The bus rattles to a stop, and Max tugs on El’s arm. “Let’s go,” she says to El, who smiles at her.

They only take a few steps before El turns around again, the look in her eyes almost scarily pleased as she meets his gaze and grins. “Will, you coming?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this took too long considering the output. oh well.
> 
> please let me know what you think! I think I really struggled with this chapter because there were two separate mini-storylines I wasn't sure if I was going to include that I ended up putting in. I hope it turned out okay.
> 
> thanks for reading, everyone!


	4. El

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max takes El to the mall. As it turns out: Will, Mike, and Lucas are there, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay in posting! i hope this chapter makes up for it.

**June 30, 1985**

_“Hello?”_

It’s not Will’s voice that answers the phone.

“Hi, Joyce,” she sighs, digging her nail into the groove in between the receiver and the phone’s grip. “Is Will there?”

_“No,”_ Joyce replies, and El can hear the confusion in her voice. _“He’s with Lucas. Didn’t you know?”_

“Thank you, Joyce,” El mutters, hanging up before she can ask more questions.

Hop casts a curious glance at her as she makes her way to the table and slumps in her chair, stabbing at her eggs. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” she huffs. “Seriously.”

“El—”

“I’m _fine_, Hop,” she insists again, even though she knows he calls bullshit. “I’m just… gonna go to Max’s today. Okay?”

He eyes her curiously as she shovels the rest of her eggs into her mouth. “Okay.”

* * *

She doesn’t really know why she picked Max. They haven’t hung out alone, really. Ever. Only with the group. But Will is mad at her, and she’s mad at Mike, and if Will is with Lucas then Dustin is probably there too.

So, Max.

Max’s address is scribbled down onto her hand, copied from the post-it on her wall, and she glances at it as she turns the corner. Sure enough, when she looks back up, Max is down the street attempting to perform some kind of flip on her skateboard. Unsuccessfully, El might add, because at that moment Max’s foot hits a wheel and the board skitters away.

When it reaches her, El stomps on the end like she’s seen Max do a couple times, vaguely pleased when it flips up into her hand. “Hey,” she says, offering the board back to Max.

“Hi?” Max replies, taking the board, and she looks a little apprehensive. El can’t blame her—El is rarely seen outside of the house at all without Will or Mike. She’s never come all the way to Max’s house before, either.

“I was hoping,” El starts, and she’s _nervous_. Why is she nervous? She’s gonna blow it, just like she did with Will and Mike. “I was hoping we could hang out today.”

Max squints at her. “Yeah, sure. Are we meeting the others, or…?”

“No. Just us.”

“Right.” Max turns on her heel, suddenly, and heads back to her house. “Come on.”

* * *

Max is a good listener. She sits cross-legged on her bed, chin propped up in her hand, eyes bright. El is surprised, but then she feels bad for being surprised, because maybe she’d always just lumped Max in with Mike when she thought of how to talk to people.

“So let me get this straight and simple,” Max says once El has finished her final struggled word. “You’re mad at Mike because of what he said yesterday. And Will is mad at you because you went with Mike.”

“Right.”

Max laughs. “That’s stupid.”

El is taken aback by the sudden shaking of Max’s shoulders. “Huh?”

“Boys are dumb,” Max continues. “Mike shouldn’t have said all that, he should have respected your boundaries, and Will should have known that you wouldn’t leave him on purpose. They’re stupid.”

“But… boys,” El says intelligently. “You—you and Lucas—“

“Lucas is also stupid,” Max grins. “But he’s nice. Will is nice, too. Mike, I’m not so sure. He talks too much.”

That pulls a laugh out of El—a startled one, granted, but a laugh nonetheless. “I mean, I guess.”

Max scrutinizes her for a moment, then. Her tongue is bitten between her teeth.

“What?” El asks, slightly unnerved by the stare.

Max’s hard glare drops, abruptly, and her face breaks into a smile. “I think we should go to the mall.”

* * *

It’s bright, when they step off the bus. It’s loud, when the mall doors slide open without anyone touching them—like in the Lab, but even there you had to press a button—and they walk inside.

Her limbs feel cold and heavy, all of a sudden. There isn’t enough air in here.

“Hey, you okay?” Max nudges her shoulder.

El manages to blink a little feeling into her body. “Too many people,” she says. “Not safe.”

Max laughs again, and it’s a sound El can only describe as chime-like. She sounds like the metal rods Hopper hung on their porch the year before. “You’ll be _fine_, El,” she assures. “You’re gonna be out in public a lot soon anyway, what with school and all. Plus,” she drops her voice, “you have _superpowers_! What could go wrong?”

El has to give it to her: she’s right. She might as well get used to this. So she lets Max take her hand and drag her up the moving stairs—the _escalator_, Will told her once—and into a store.

“This is the Gap,” Max says, and El nervously eyes the fake humans adorned in bright clothing. “You get new clothes here, stuff that you like.”

“Stuff that I… like?” El repeats, because she doesn’t really _know_ what that is. She likes Eggos, and calculus, and her dad. She likes her friends, and she likes bikes. But clothes? “How do I know what I like?”

Max has an expression on her face El doesn’t quite understand. “You just… try stuff on until you find something that feels like you. Not Mike,” she adds on quickly. “Not Hopper. Not even Will. _You_.”

El glances down at her loose flannel, the sleeves rolled up to fit her arms. This is Hop’s. Her shoes are Mike’s—old, worn sneakers. She doesn’t… dislike them. But Max is right. They don’t feel like hers.

“You good?” Max’s voice shakes her out of her reverie.

El nods. “Great.”

* * *

So it turns out neither of them have money—Max has three dollars, but that’s not enough for anything here. But Max says that the Gap is a “corporation” and that the owners are “greedy” and “evil” and use something called “capitalism.” El isn’t totally sure what that all means yet, but Max seems staunch enough in her ideas to convince El to interrupt the security alarms at the door as they walk out with clothes tucked under their arms.

El pulls on her new clothes—a black _jumpsuit_, as Max called it, covered in colorful patterns—and cleaner-looking sneakers. Max gives an appreciative clap when she walks out of the bathroom.

“I think you look _great_,” she says. “What do you say we go get ice cream? Steve’ll give us a discount.”

On their way to Scoops Ahoy, El spots a familiar face—someone from school, the girl who made Dustin cry at the Snow Ball last year. She tugs on Max’s arm. “Isn’t that…”

“Stacey,” Max confirms. “God, I hate her.”

El pulls her around a corner, eyeing the cup in Stacey’s hand. “Watch this,” she whispers, and she glares at the cup as hard as she can. It implodes between Stacey’s fingers, red liquid spraying all over her admittedly very nice clothes.

Max lets out a startled, appreciative laugh, pulling El away before Stacey and her friends can spot them. “You’re insane,” she says, but she’s grinning the whole time.

Steve, sure enough, is at the counter in Scoops. Robin is nowhere in sight. “Oh, hi,” he says when they whirl in. “Why are all of you children just out of your minds today?”

Max gives him a funny look that El copies, because it makes Steve look confused. “One double chocolate chip, for me,” she says, turning to El. “What do you want?”

El frowns down at the rows of ice cream. “I don’t know.” Her eyes catch on a pink bucket in the front—that one looks familiar, though she can’t place the memory.

“Strawberry?” Max guesses, following her gaze, and El shrugs. “Strawberry,” she says more firmly, looking up at Steve.

Steve complies, handing them their cones, but he still has a puzzled look on his face. “Are you even supposed to be here?” he asks El, and Max starts to laugh. It’s contagious, so El joins in, and she only giggles harder when Steve’s face becomes even more concerned.

“Thanks,” she calls over her shoulder as Max tugs her out the door.

Once they catch their breath, Max checks her watch. “This has been great, but the bus will be here in five minutes. How about we go do something fun at your house? Mom and Neil will probably be home, so…”

“Sure,” El says, because she trusts Max with _anything_ fun now.

They run back down the escalators—now broken, apparently, they’ve stopped moving—miraculously not dropping their ice cream. Max moves too fast for El to apologize for bumping into anyone unless she wants to fall behind, sprinting across the lobby. It’s at that moment that El spots someone else she knows.

Will is stalking angrily towards the exit, and she watches as the automatic doors as the seem to slide open a little more forcefully than they should.

“Hey!” someone shouts after him—Mike, suddenly appearing with Lucas hot on his heels.

They disappear outside, and El shoots Max a look. “He’s mad.”

“No shit,” Max replies, but there’s no heat to her words. They chase after the boys, emerging outside just in time to hear the rest of Mike’s sentence.

“Hey, _Will_, what do you mean?” he demands, and El can see the angry flush on Will’s face.

“He probably means that you talk to much,” Max says, and Mike whirls around to face them. Lucas waves awkwardly at Max.

Mike’s eyes widen, instantly honing in on El. “What are you doing here?”

“Hanging out,” she says, because they were and he sounds so _accusing_, and then her eyes catch Will’s.

_I’m sorry,_ his voice echoes in her head, and she almost outwardly sighs in relief as the wall between them breaks down. _I’m sorry for shutting you out. I was mad._

_I deserved it,_ she laughs despite what Max said, unable to suppress her smile, and then suddenly Will’s memories are flashing through her brain like a highlight reel. She can hear Mike’s voice talking about “winning her” this morning. After they _just_ had this conversation!

“You were here for me,” she states, fixing Mike with a glare.

“No!” Mike denies, but then he looks over at Will—his face still red—and seems to put it together. “Will, you _told_ her?”

“I don’t tell her anything, Mike,” Will snaps, and El is startled. Will is _never_ mad at Mike. Not like this. “She just knows. She’s not stupid.”

“Yeah, I’m not stupid, and I know that I asked you not to do this!” El exclaims, and she knows that Will is peering through her own memories that he missed. “I thought I told you I need time. Not… not…”

_A guilt trip?_ Will suggests, and he’s seen their conversation so El trusts he knows what he’s talking about.

“Not a guilt-trip!” she agrees.

Mike looks like, what’s the phrase, a deer in the headlights. “El, it wasn’t a guilt-trip, I swear, I was—I was just looking for something for you because I didn’t want you to be mad at me anymore, you know what we talked about and I guess I just thought—“

_Thought what?_ she can’t help but wonder. _Thought you could win me? Change my mind? Make me do something else I don’t want to?_

“You thought wrong,” El says coldly.

“El—”

She steps forward and Mike cuts himself off. “Max is right. You talk too much. And you never listen.” She shakes her head. “I hate that you don’t listen.” She can sense the bus approaching behind them, and she glances over her shoulder before looking back at Mike. “I can’t be with someone who does that.”

Max tugs on El’s arm as the bus pulls into its spot. “Let’s go,” she says to El, and El smiles at her. Max offers Lucas a smile as well, and El could almost _scream_ because she wishes Mike was as understanding as that.

They only take a few steps before El feels something—a tug, lonely and mad. Hurt. She turns around again, looking straight past Mike and Lucas. “Will, you coming?”

He looks up at her, eyes wide in surprise, and Mike turns to him. Maybe, if she’s honest… she wants to hang out with Will. But she also wants to deal this blow to Mike.

“Yeah!” Will says before Mike can even take a breath. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

“Wh—Will!” Mike protests, and he does sound rather betrayed, but El already has Will’s elbow locked with hers as she and Max usher him onto the bus.

“Ice cream?” she offers. “It’s strawberry.”

Will’s face breaks into a grin.

* * *

“Hey, no Hopper,” Will notices when they step inside the cabin. “Cool.”

“What’s wrong with Hopper?” Max asks, genuinely curious, and Will laughs.

“No, nothing,” he says. “He’s just so…” Will performs an exaggerated scowl, and El can’t help but giggle. He bounds forward—and again, El marvels at his sudden mood swing—into her room.

Max gives her an amused, incredulous look, and El laughs a little. “What?”

“I thought he was, like, _depressed_ or something at the mall,” she explains quietly. “Now I think he was just pissed off.”

“Of course he was,” El snickers, “he was with Mike.”

“I can _hear_ you,” Will calls from El’s room, but he doesn’t sound too annoyed. “Can we not talk about Mike right now?”

_Sorry,_ El says, and she grabs Max’s arm and pulls the door closed behind them.

* * *

El suppresses giggles as Max makes faces at her, hanging off the side of her bed with the ends of her hair tangling on the floor. Max eventually slides onto the carpet, her face red from the blood rushing to her head, but Will quickly replaces her as Max rolls over to El’s pile of comics. El can see the supreme effort Will is putting in to keep a straight face as he reads his Green Lantern comic upside down, and she decides that’s unacceptable.

_Hey, Will,_ she prods, and he barely glances at her. _Wiiiiiiill._

He sticks his tongue out at her, finally looking at her through his floppy bangs.

_You look like a fuckin’ palm tree,_ she jabs, and Will snorts so loudly he falls.

Max yelps, startled, as Will hits the ground laughing. “What the—“

“El!” he cries, pushing himself into a sitting position. His hair flops back into his eyes and El can’t contain a giggle at that. “You can’t just _say_ stuff like that!”

Max turns to stare at El. “What did you say?”

El presses a hand to her mouth, stifling her grin. “I called him a palm tree.”

“A _fuckin’_ palm tree, no less!” Will protests, and Max bursts out laughing too, collapsing backward into a shelf. The shelf doesn’t fall, but the music player wobbles.

The mixtape Jonathan gave her is playing, and El can’t help but feel uneasy at the way certain songs—the ones Will wrinkles his nose at—start to sound muddied and scratchy, to the point where she twists her hand and the music skips ahead. (Max groans every time, “That song wasn’t _bad_! Jonathan needs to make less shitty quality mixtapes, Jesus!”)

Well, maybe _uneasy_ isn’t the right word. But she definitely feels weird.

Before she can ponder that thought too carefully, though, the front door swings open and Hop’s telltale heavy footsteps comp inside.

“Oh, hey,” Will says, picking up a new comic. “He’s here.”

In seconds, Hop has her bedroom door flung open, and his eyes are wide and miffed. “Is the Wheeler kid—oh.” He cuts himself off when he sees Will, not Mike.

“Don’t you knock?” Max asks, looking taken aback. “Jeez!”

“Yeah, jeez,” El seconds, because they were just listening to music. God.

Hop seems more surprised than Max, which El thinks is funny. “Right. Sorry.” His eyes flick from Max to Will. “What are they, uh… what are they doing here?”

“They were gonna sleep over,” El says, because they’d talked about it a few hours earlier.

“Well… Max can, sure,” Hop allows—relents, more like, he looks very disoriented. “As long as her parents say it’s fine. Will has to leave.”

El feels her face scrunch up. “What? Why?”

“Don’t,” Will interrupts, casting aside his comic book, and he gets to his feet. “Don’t worry, I get it. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, okay?” He shuffles out the door, and El glares at Hop when Will’s back is turned.

“Hop!” she hisses as soon as the front door slams shut. “What the hell?”

“_Language._ He’s a _boy_, El, I don’t care if he isn’t Mike,” Hop retorts. “Max can stay _only_ if her parents say she can. Did they?”

Max nods, and El rambles on. “Yeah, but—“

Hop sighs, his eyes cast toward the ceiling. “_El_. What do you want me to do? He’s already gone, okay?”

“Fine,” she mumbles petulantly, and once Hop leaves Max pats her on the arm.

“Just talk to him tonight,” she suggests, tapping her head. “You know, up here. And hey,” she scrabbles for the comic Will had been holding. “He borrowed this from me, so it’s mine to give to you.”

The name on the cover—X-Men—is familiar. She doesn’t recognize the woman on it, though, nor the red coloring, so she’s sure she hasn’t read it. She reaches out to take it from Max, but the second her fingers brush the cover, her vision twists and pitches forward until she’s staring into a void. _The_ void.

“Will?” she says, on reflex, because the only times she blacks out like this are when Will calls her to the void. But he doesn’t respond, and she doesn’t feel his presence at all. “Max!” she yells, louder, because wherever her mind just went Max is still with her body. Hopefully.

Something blue catches her eye and she turns to examine it before she realizes it’s a car. It’s _big_, she can see it just fine from where she stands. Nevertheless, she walks over to it, because if she’s seeing it here then it must be important. The windshield is cracked, for one thing, and there’s a smear of red where the fractures emanate from. El really hopes it isn’t blood, but knowing her luck, it almost certainly is. She reaches out to touch the hood of the car, but as soon as she gets within an inch of it, something makes a croaking sound behind her and she whirls around.

“Hello?” she calls hesitantly. No response. “Is anyone there?”

Still no answer, but there is another muffled noise, and when she turns back around, the car is gone. Instead, there are two people. One is on the floor, sprawled out, and the other is…

Max’s brother?

But that makes no sense. And he’s crouching over the girl on the floor, and she sounds _scared_.

She takes a step back, and that’s when Billy looks over at her. But he can’t see her, so he _can’t _be looking at her. That’s impossible.

“I need to get out,” she says, even if there’s no one to hear her. He _can’t_ hear her, _come on, El, breathe_. “Need to get out. I can get out, let me get out, need to get out—”

Warm hands grasp her wrists, pulling them away from her face, and El’s pulse flutters too fast and then back to normal when Max’s red hair falls into her face.

“Holy shit,” Max nearly yells. “What happened?”

“I—it—“ El sucks in a few breaths, regaining feeling in her limbs and noting the comic clutched in her fingers. “Was this Billy’s?”

Max frowns down at the book. “Yeah. He didn’t like it, though, so he threw it out. It’s mine, now.”

“I saw him,” El says. “When I touched his book. I saw him, and he was with a girl, and something was _wrong_.”

“Yeah, well, he usually isn’t very nice to girls. Or people. In general.” Max grimaces.

“This was different,” El insists. “She was scared. Really scared. She needed help, I could _feel_ it, but I couldn’t do anything. He was hurting her.” She can see the hesitancy on Max’s face. It’s a chilling thought, but she wonders if Billy scares girls like that a lot. “This was different, though.”

Max still looks skeptical. “How do you know?”

“His car crashed, Max,” she forges on. “There was blood. He was fine, but… she wasn’t.”

Max sighs, and her teeth pinch around her bottom lip. “I don’t… I don’t think it’s smart—or safe—to go right now. Night is… his safe space. And there’s no way your dad will let us leave now, even if he is drunk.”

“He’s… drunk?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Max snorts. “Bad date or something, I’m guessing. But…” she quickly sobers up, her face pinching. “First thing in the morning, alright? We can go to my house and check it out. See if he’s really up to something.”

This sounds like a compromise. And if El has learned anything, it’s that compromises are sometimes the best thing you can get. “Okay,” she says. “I’m going to talk to Will now. And tomorrow, we go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, sorry for the long wait. life's been busy. this fic is finally actually taking shape, though, and i have everything planned out to a t. i hope yall liked this chapter!


	5. Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will returns to Mike's.
> 
> Something—someone—returns to Will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to get three different people to yell at me to stop procrastinating.

At the crossroads of Elm and Copper, Will debates turning away from the cul-de-sac where the Wheelers live in favor of going home. But it’s getting dark—there’s no way he’ll make it home before the sun sets without his bike, which is in the Wheeler’s garage—and his mom expects him to be at Mike’s house, anyway. Reluctantly, he heads in the opposite direction of his house, shoving his hands in his pockets and practicing what he’ll say to Mike and Lucas.

Everything he can think of sounds so stupid, but Ted opens the front door for him with little more than a grunt, and Will feels sufficiently ignored by a Wheeler for the night.

He barrels downstairs to avoid Holly, Nancy, or Mrs. Wheeler—if any of them are home, that is, Will really can’t be sure. Mike is lying down on the couch, but when Will closes the basement door behind him, he lurches into a sitting position.

“Nancy, get out—“

“Not Nancy,” Will mutters, descending into Mike’s line of sight.

“Oh.” Mike’s tone is flat, which stings. “You kinda interrupted something.”

Will casts a glance around the room—Mike sprawled out on the couch, Lucas sitting in a chair a couple feet away. “You don’t look very busy.”

Mike huffs. “Well, Lucas was actually trying to coach me on how girls work—which you don’t need to be here for, they apparently like you better than me.”

“I don’t—“

“Actually,” Lucas jumps in, shooting a look at Will he can’t decipher. “I think Will can be really helpful right now. El and Max want to be around him, so he probably got some intel!”

“But I—”

“_Right_, Will?” Lucas adds on through gritted teeth, and Will suddenly deciphers the look as a _play along_ glare. _I’m trying to save your ass._

“Sure,” he intones, casting a worried glance over Mike, whose frame is still very tense.

Hearing Will’s affirmation seems to open a valve in Mike no one knew he had, and the rigidity leaves his body in a breath. “That’s so smart. I never would have thought to do that.” Will resists the urge to roll his eyes as Mike turns to him. “So, seriously, how do I make El happy? How do I get her to forgive me when I haven’t even done anything wrong? She doesn’t work like you do, or even like—I don’t know, it’s just weird. Girls are a whole different _species_.”

There’s a derisive hum from behind Will, and he flinches.

_Don’t look,_ El says. _You’ll give me away._

_What are you doing?_ he asks, careful to keep staring in Mike’s direction.

He senses her shrug. _Wanted to make sure you got back okay. Showed up just in time for him to call us ‘species.’_

His stomach twists slightly. He may have his beef with Mike right now, but he knows he didn’t _mean_ it. _He thinks I went with you and Max to spy on you._

She snorts, moving into his field of vision. _Because he doesn’t think we’re worth hanging out with?_

Will cringes. _I don’t know. He’s… I don’t know._

_Oh,_ El realizes. _I also came to tell you something: make sure Mike doesn’t come find me tomorrow or anything. I’m going to Max’s to check something._

_Okay,_ Will acknowledges. _I’ll try._

She smiles at him, and then she’s gone.

“Will, are you even listening to me?”

He blinks and shakes his head, answering Mike’s question just a second too late than would be natural. “Sorry. I’m really tired.”

Mike sighs. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s late. We can talk about the girls tomorrow. You guys good to stay over?”

* * *

**July 1, 1985**

Will wakes up relatively early the next morning, sunlight streaming through the window and directly onto his face. He rolls out of his blanket nest as quietly as possible, careful not to disrupt Mike and Lucas. Ted is asleep on the couch, but the Wheeler’s car isn’t in the driveway, which leads Will to conclude that Mrs. Wheeler must have left already.

In the kitchen, he helps himself to an Eggo, popping another one in for Holly when she wanders in. He’s always had a soft spot for her—she’s a little menace, sometimes, but she’s the best aspects of Mike without any of the teenage angst. Yet.

He sits on the floor while the toaster runs, and Holly bounces on his knee and babbles about some story about a dragon. Like he said: she’s just like Mike.

She snags the waffle and runs to the TV as soon as it pops, but her story sticks in Will’s mind. He had been planning a campaign, before summer started. All of Mike’s D&D stuff is in the basement, and it would be an easy way to cheer Mike up.

The cape stored in Holly’s dress-up box no longer fits over his shoulders, but the purple hat works just fine, and he settles it on his head. Holly says he looks pretty, and he ruffles her hair before making his way back downstairs.

* * *

D&D goes fine, if a little slow, for all of about ten minutes. Will is just sensing Mike and Lucas settling back into routine when the phone rings and Mike bolts for it, and Will can’t help the fists his hands clench into.

“Weird,” Mike says after a moment, holding the receiver to his ear. “Line’s dead.” He looks over at Lucas. “That was probably El, I should call her back.”

Will remembers what El had asked him to do. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mike.” He’s also pretty confident it wasn’t El calling.

Mike ignores him, dialing Hopper’s number. Will hears, somehow, the dead air as Mike’s mouth turns down into a frown. “I think the phone is broken.”

“It’s probably the weather, it’s supposed to rain later,” Lucas says impatiently—Will grins a little knowing he’s ensured at least one of his friends into the game. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter!” Mike insists. “What if El tries to call again?”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “It was probably a _telemarketer_, Mike, El just dumped you _yesterday _and she isn’t desperate like you are.”

_You can’t dump someone you aren’t dating,_ Will thinks, and he hears El’s chuckle of approval from across town.

“I’m not _desperate_,” Mike grumbles, sitting back down.

* * *

Mike Wheeler will be the death of him.

Will has known that since the first day they met—when that little boy walked up to him and asked to be his friend, Will knew that he would do _anything_ for him. That hasn’t gotten any better with time.

But Will also knows that Mike has a way of getting under his skin like no one else does. It’s never frightened him before—Mike has a habit of worming in little secrets that make Will feel a touch warmer inside. Right now, all he feels is blinding anger.

“Will!” Mike calls from behind him, and Will pays him no mind as he yanks open the door. Mike fucking Wheeler can’t even sit through one of Will’s campaigns, as if Will hasn’t participated in dozens of Mike’s. And all because of El—Will’s own _sister_, practically. His best friend is willing to throw this all away for one girl.

It’s raining. Down-pouring, actually. “Shit,” he mutters, but he’s too invested in this act now. He reaches for his bike, leaning against the wall, and then Mike catches his arm.

“Will, come on,” Mike says. “I didn’t mean to be a jerk.”

“Well, you were,” he snaps, whirling around and yanking his hand from Mike’s grip. He remembers when Mike’s hand was on his, not even a year ago. This brings the exact opposite feeling.

Mike tries again. “I just wasn’t in the mood.”

“That’s the thing, Mike!” Will exclaims, because the rain is spilling his secrets so he will, too. “You’re _never_ in the mood anymore. You’ve been an absolute _asshole_ for days. You’re ruining the Party!”

“I’m not—”

“Oh, yeah?” Will scoffs. “Where’s Dustin, then? Where’s Max? For that matter, where’s your _sister_? Your fucking _mom_?” Mike’s eyes go blank, and that’s Will’s answer. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You don’t know and you probably don’t even care. All you care about is swapping spit with some stupid girl!”

“El’s not stupid!” Mike retorts, and Will opens his mouth to say that that wasn’t what he meant, _at all, _obviously. Mike beats him to it. “It’s not _my_ fault you don’t like girls!”

The words seem to slap him, and everything screeches to a halt. The ground tilts beneath him, and the only reason he manages to stay on his feet is by realizing he can either grab on to Mike or stand on his own, so he stands. He feels his mouth open, then close, then open again. _Mike didn’t just say that,_ he thinks, a little manic. _He didn’t. He wouldn’t._ Mike is the only person who had never thrown that in his face. Was.

And the worst part?

“It really fucking is,” he mutters, jamming his toe under his bike’s kickstand and flipping it up.

“Will,” Mike says again, and his voice sounds different now—fragile, almost. Will won’t give him the satisfaction of easy forgiveness, ducking away from his gaze. “I just… I mean, what did you think? We were never gonna get girlfriends? We were just gonna sit in my basement and play games for the rest of our lives?”

“Yeah,” Will tells him, voice thick with suppressed tears. He’s never been able to comprehend life without Mike, and now he’s contemplating an entire future of that very thing. “I guess I did. I really did.”

He makes a break for it, pedaling out from under the shelter of the garage. His tears finally flood over, mingling with the rain, and he’s suddenly grateful for the awful weather.

He hears Mike calling after him, but as soon as he clears the driveway the methodical tapping of water on concrete drowns him out.

* * *

Sobs are still tearing out from his throat as he collapses in Castle Byers—his bike abandoned on his porch, he ran through the slick, dark forest to the fort. It’s drier once he ducks inside, but he’s still soaked and the tears won’t stop.

“Stupid,” he mumbles, tongue heavy in his mouth, as he stares at one of the pictures he keeps on his makeshift table. From their first Halloween to their fourth grade Christmas party to Dustin’s tenth birthday; Mike is in every one.

Impulsively, he gathers every picture into his hand and rips them down the middle—he feels a jolt of sick satisfaction as he watches Mike from last year tear away from himself. “Stupid,” he says again, and suddenly it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.

_I hate him, I hate him, I hate him I hate him ihatehimihatehimihatehimihatehim_—

A soothing phantom touch comes down on his hand—he can’t be sure if it’s El, watching him, or just a memory from when Mike still cared—but he shrugs it off. He realizes he’s screaming, stumbling out of the fort into the night, and then suddenly he’s on his knees and he’s still yelling so hard his throat hurts.

There’s a shrill ringing in his ears and he clamps his hands to the sides of his head, squeezing his eyes shut, but his voice continues to spill out from his chest as though a monster made out of pure pain is clawing its way out—and for all Will knows, it could be. He coughed up a demon once before, after all.

The scream dies down when a chill suddenly runs up his spine, going deeper than just the cold rain. This is primal fear, something that triggers his reflexes so suddenly it overpowers even his hurt. He felt like this before—at the movies (with Mike, he remembers, and then tries not to), and on the hill. He hadn’t understood it then.

Now he does.

“Will!” Mike bursts out from the trees, the hood of his rain jacket blown half off his head, eyes wide. “Holy shit, are you okay?”

Will doesn’t answer—can’t, it seems, his voice has suddenly failed him.

“I’ll go get some towels and his jacket,” Lucas says from behind Mike, and he takes off before Mike can say anything.

“Will, look at me, come on, we should go home,” Mike offers.

“Home?”

“My house. Whatever.” Will flinches away from Mike as he approaches, and Mike puts his hands up. “Will, I'm…” His voice breaks on what Will thinks might be _sorry_.

“Don’t.” He doesn’t have the energy to glare at Mike, even, all his focus is on taking in oxygen. “How’d—“

“—we find you?” Mike finishes. “We went to your house, then I heard screaming. What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” he rasps, his fingers digging into softened ground. Mike doesn’t need to know how much power he has over Will.

Mike clearly isn’t buying it. “You look awful, and Castle Byers is…” His voice shakes a little.

Will looks at the fort for the first time since he’d arrived. It isn’t even a fort anymore—just a pile of splintered wood. He doesn’t remember pulling out the baseball bat, nor does he remember dismantling it at all. For a second, the image of it collapsing under some invisible weight flashes before his eyes, but he blinks and it’s gone, replaced with chilling inky blackness.

Mike is still looking at him expectantly, and even now Will can’t bear to look him in the face. But he’s looking for an answer. “The Mind Flayer,” he croaks. “I felt him. He’s back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> halfway done, y'all! thanks for reading, I'll try to update this soon.


	6. El

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The investigation of Max's house turns up more questions than answers for El.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello hello im back!! got sidetracked for a bit being gay and stuff but I finally got my shit together to finish this next chapter.  
I hope you enjoy!

**July 1, 1985**

El waits impatiently as Max flips through her keyring, searching for her house key.

“Can’t I just—”

Max cuts her off with a victorious  _ ha! _ as she shoves her key in the lock. “You don’t need superpowers to open a door.”

El rolls her eyes as she follows Max inside. “Makes it easier, though.”

The layout of Max’s house is still rather unfamiliar—big, compared to the cabin—so El trails behind Max as the other girl creeps from room to room. “He’s not here,” Max finally announces after opening and closing one more door.

“He never came home?” El asks.

Max shrugs. “I guess not. If he crashed his car, it makes sense he wouldn’t want to face Neil.”

El taps her chin, looking around the living room before her eye catches on something on the floor. “What’s that?”

Max follows her gaze to the faint trail of water droplets soaked into the carpet, leading down a hallway. “It’s going toward the bathroom,” she says.

El makes a beeline for the bathroom, and when she opens the door she only finds more questions. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, okay, that’s weird,” Max agrees.

The bathtub is filled to the brim, chunks of ice and plastic bags floating on top. There’s a sheen of water all over the floor, leading outside and forming the trail El had initially spotted.  _ Cold _ , something deep in her mind mumbles, and El suppresses the physical shiver that runs down her spine. “Where’s his room?”

“Right across the hall,” Max says, frowning, “but I wouldn’t—”

El takes off across the hall, shoving Billy’s door open and casting an eye over the, frankly, disgusting mess of a bedroom. Ugly posters everywhere, socks strewn about… very different from her own room, or Will’s. It’s something on his bedside table that catches her eye, and she reaches for it.

“El!” Max hisses, and she freezes. “He will  _ kill _ you if you touch his stuff. He will literally kill you, we shouldn’t even be in here.”

“It’s not his,” El notices.

“What?”

El picks up the red lifeguard pouch. There’s a name stitched onto the label, easy to read:  _ Heather _ . Alarmingly, there’s a smear of blood across the front pouch.

Max’s eyes widen. “Do you think that’s the girl you saw with Billy last night?”

El shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. I don’t know what she looks like.”

Max snaps her fingers suddenly. “I know how we can get a picture of her  _ and _ see if she showed up for work today. Bring the pouch, let’s go.”

* * *

It’s a tight squeeze for the both of them on Max’s bike, but it works, despite the sudden downpour. El is all the stabilizer they need, anyway.

She leaps off the second the pool is in sight, leaving Max to leave it somewhere safe as she runs to the safety of the main building. “Hi,” she gasps as she comes to a stop in front of the help desk. “I, uh, was Heather here today?”

The boy behind the desk gives her an unimpressed look—she must look ridiculous, drenched and panting. “Why do you care?”

Max jogs up behind her and saves her, thank goodness. “We found her lifeguard pouch, didn’t know if she needed it for work.”

He sighs, unempathetic. “No, Heather wasn’t here today. Leave it and I’ll give it to her tomorrow.”

El huffs and drops the bag down onto the counter, turning to Max. “How do we find her?” she whispers.

Max chews on her lip. “You can find people with their pictures, right?”

“Right.”

“Great,” Max grins. “C’mon.” She marches away, reaching out and tearing down a piece of paper from the wall as she heads into one of the doors labeled  _ Locker Room _ .

El runs after her, grabbing the paper from her hands as soon as the door closes behind them. It’s a picture of a girl—pretty, dark hair and dark eyes. “This is Heather?”

“That’s her,” Max confirms. “Was that the girl you saw with Billy yesterday?”

“I can’t be sure.” She was too far away, and she couldn’t see the girl’s face. “I can find out.”

Max pats a spot on the bench and El sits, closing her eyes and grasping the paper.

Heather’s face flashes in her mind in pieces, and the scream from yesterday rings in her ears. All of a sudden, she can see the same scene from her last vision from a different angle—Billy hunched over a girl who now she realizes surely is Heather. The picture flips and switches to a house with a number on it—247—and she sees the street corner sign that says  _ Maple _ .

It’s enough, and El drops the picture.

“You okay?” Max asks, grasping her knee.

El shakes her off. “Fine, I’m fine. We need to go to Heather’s, see if she’s there. If she’s okay.”

* * *

She directs Max through the twists and turns of the street, her internal compass guiding her until she finds the house with 247 on the front—difficult to see through the dark rain, but certainly there. “Here,” she says, and Max skids to a stop.

They walk up the front stairs and El glares at the handle, willing it to unlock. It barely takes a moment, the door swinging open, and she pulls Max inside.

“There’s someone here,” Max whispers, and El does hear someone’s voice coming from the next room.

“Heather?” she calls, abandoning all subtlety, marching down the hall.

The chatter instantly quiets, and El sees an odd collection of people around the table: Billy, Heather, and two older people probably around Hop’s age.

“Uh, hi?” the older woman says warily. “What—”

“What are you doing here, Max?” Billy asks, a razor edge to his voice, and El can feel Max shrink under his gaze behind her.

“You know these people?” the man asks him.

Billy rises from his seat and walks around the table towards them. “This is my sister, Maxine,” he explains, that same sharpness in his words. His gaze goes right to El. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met. You are…?”

He doesn’t offer a hand to shake, like Will has been teaching her, and El is honestly glad. She might have bit him if he tried. “El,” she says, holding his gaze steady despite the itching in her fingers to move her wet hair from where it’s stuck on her face. She can see the burning anger behind his eyes, and she suddenly understands why Max is so afraid. “My name is El.”

The woman, still at the table, laughs nervously. “Okay, El, hello, why are you here?”

Max jumps in. “We’re really sorry to interrupt, we found Heather’s lifeguard pouch on the street and we wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“Oh, I’m fine!” Heather answers breezily, smile on her face and a tray of cookies in her hand. “I must have dropped it.”

“We left it at the pool for you,” Max says weakly. “Uh, have a nice dinner, nice to meet you.”

El tries to protest. This all feels so  _ weird _ , and even if Heather is fine then why can she still hear the screaming in her head? The only thing that stops her from saying anything is the heavy weight that drops in her stomach, like lead, and her throat begins to close. The sure signs of panic, she knows, but she isn’t sure  _ why _ she’s panicking. She spins on her heel and speedwalks out the door, back into the rain, almost grateful when the cold water hits her exposed skin.

“El, wait!” Max says, rushing out behind her.

El barely hears her, because her head is swimming and there’s a scream held in her chest that she knows isn’t her own. “It’s Will,” she gasps out, sinking onto the concrete steps. “It’s Will, something’s wrong, it’s  _ dark and cold _ —”

Will’s sob tears itself out of her mouth and she struggles to regain control, clenched fists pressing into her eyes. There's fear and anger welling up inside of her that isn't hers _at all_. This is wrong, this is  _ so so so wrong _ . Billy is wrong, Heather is wrong,  _ Will _ is wrong.

“Jesus, El,” Max says, worry permeating through her voice. “Here, come on, let’s go back to my place.” She helps El onto the bike, and El presses her forehead to the base of Max’s spine to try and calm her nerves.

* * *

“Something was wrong with Will,” she explains, twisting her fingers into the soft material of her borrowed sleep shirt, grateful to be dry. “I could  _ feel _ it, like I’ve never felt it before. At first I thought it was something from  _ me _ , about Billy and Heather, because I’ve never felt Will’s thoughts like this. Ever.”

Max frowns, rocking back onto the balls of her feet. “Is he okay?”

“I think so?” El asks more than answers. “I can’t feel his fear anymore, but that’s because I can’t feel anything.”

Max drums her fingers on the floor. “I propose you get some rest. We can call Will first thing in the morning, ask him what happened.”   
  
“And tell him about Billy and Heather, right?” El adds.

“What  _ about _ them?” Max replies, her head tilting. “Cookies aren’t exactly evil.”

El sighs. “Maybe. But something wasn’t right, I can  _ feel  _ it.”

Max nods slowly, and El can tell that she isn’t certain—but she does know that Max trusts her enough to listen. “Wait for Will. Then we can figure it out. Okay?”

El cracks her fingers nervously. “Okay.”

* * *

**July 2, 1985**

The ringing of the phone is their alarm, and El can feel Max bolt upright, the blankets twisting around them.

“Hello?” Max says, then a pause. “Oh, great, hi, go away.” She slams the phone back down.

“Wh—”

“Mike,” Max grumbles. “Don’t need to talk to him first thing in the morning, I’ll feel the need to decapitate someone.”

There’s a sudden buzz of static across the room—Max’s supercom.

_ “Max? El?” _ It’s Lucas’s voice.  _ “Max and El, do you copy? Over.” _

Max groans and shoves herself out of bed, stomping over to the radio. “Stop helping Mike. We don’t want to talk to him.  _ Over _ .” She shoves down the antennae so that hopefully Lucas and Mike can’t still reach them, dropping it down on her desk and making her way back to the bed.

_ “El,” _ a quieter voice says, crackly over the radio that El could have  _ sworn _ Max just turned off. She finally sits up.  _ “El, it’s me. Over.” _

“Will?” El says, scrambling for the radio and pressing the button. “Will, why—”

_ “I can’t talk over link,” _ he answers slowly.  _ “It’s been all… weird since last night.” _ He pauses for a minute, but El waits for him to collect his thoughts.  _ “I felt Him last night.” _

El’s blood runs cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, FINALLY, all this separate angst and detective work will come to fruition. stay tuned for 7, y'all!


	7. Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids confront Billy, and Will discovers something _shocking_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is when we really start to stray from the show. the basic storyline is the same, like before, but now I am taking this on a magical mystery ride, babey!
> 
> on another note, I may add some tags for certain subplots. stay tuned.

**July 2, 1985**

Mike’s arm is a heavy weight across his shoulders. Will has already shrugged him off multiple times already, but Mike is nothing if not stubborn. When El finally arrives, blinding light spilling into the basement when she and Max tumble through the backdoor, he shakes Mike off again and staggers over into El’s arms.

“Will,” she says softly, a hand carding through his hair as he presses his forehead into her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Max asks, and Will can hear the frown in her voice. “You didn’t do anything.”

El sighs, gently moving Will’s head and instead looping an arm around his waist. “I felt something was wrong last night, but I didn’t know what. I was so preoccupied with Heather…”

“The _ lifeguard_?” Mike says, and though Will still can’t look him in the eyes, he sees his face contort in rage. “You went to the pool in the fucking _ rain _ while Will was—was being attacked?”

“I wasn’t being attacked,” Will says, but his voice is drowned out by El, Max, _ and _ Lucas as they all turn on Mike.

“Are you serious, Mike? Get a fucking grip, you’re acting like a child.” Max.

“It was about the Mind Flayer, mouthbreather! We were trying to _ help_.” El, of course.

Even Lucas scoffs. “Mike, cut it out, you’re being an asshole.”

Mike throws his hands up. “Oh, well I’m so sorry for being the only one here who cares about Will!”

Will feels the energy spike as soon as he says it, and El unlatches from him to take a step towards Mike. “Don’t you _ dare_,” she spits, jabbing a finger to his chest. “We all care.”

And maybe El’s anger is having an effect on him, or maybe it’s all him, but Will finds himself saying, “I don’t think you’re one to talk anyway, Mike.”

Mike blinks like he’s been slapped. “Are you—are you joking?” he splutters. “What the hell does that mean?”

No, it’s definitely Will’s anger. “It _ means _ that you don’t get to act like an asshole and then say it’s because you want to protect me, because _ you’re _ the reason it happened at all.”

Lucas tries to intervene as Mike’s mouth drops open, holding his hands out. “Guys—”

“I didn’t set loose the Mind Flayer!” Mike says, and his voice is slowly getting louder. “Don’t pin this on me!”

“I didn’t—I know you didn’t!” Will snaps, and he finds that his limbs are trembling beyond his control. “But the only reason I was in the woods was because of _ you_, and you know damn well what you did.”

Mike takes a breath as if he’s about to argue, but then Will finally meets his eyes, he falls silent—which confirms all of what Will suspected, really.

_ Do I want to ask? _ El’s voice echoes in his head, a little faded and warbly, and he lets out an audible sigh of relief. Their link seems to be coming back slowly—after the static in his head all night, he’d been afraid it might have been cut off again.

_ Later, _ he answers tersely. “It doesn’t matter,” he says out loud. “What matters is _ how _ I felt the Mind Flayer if El closed the gate last year. The Mind Flayer can’t even exist in this dimension without a host.”

“And I have a theory about that,” El replies. “Max and I… well, I had a vision, and it led us to Heather. The lifeguard.”

Lucas makes a face. “Why her? She never had anything to do with any of this.”

“Right,” El agrees. “But she works with Billy. I saw him first… and I think he saw me.”

“In the vision?” Will frowns. “But that’s not—”

“—possible, I know,” El replies. “So Max and I went to Heather’s house. It was… weird.”

Max shifts uncomfortably. “I mean, yeah, it was weird but… Billy is always weird. El thinks it means something, but I’m… not sure.”

“I heard her screaming,” El insists. “Not out loud. In her head.” She pauses, tilts her head. “And in the vision, I saw Billy hurting her, before he saw me. It just all felt… wrong.”

“Okay, let’s say it’s Billy,” Lucas says. “Even so, how did the Mind Flayer get him?”

Mike speaks up for the first time in a few minutes, and Will looks down at his shoes. “I can think of two options. One, someone opened the gate again, two, maybe some of the monster never left. The lab is still shut down, so I think that rules out option one.”

_ And option two is because of me, _ Will realizes, and El frowns at him. He waves her off, scrambling for a piece of paper and the charcoal he knows the Wheelers have in a box of art supplies under the stairs. He shoves the D&D board off of the table, letting the pieces scatter across the floor, and slams the paper down. Mike jumps.

Max nudges him. “What are you doing?”

“The Mind Flayer had me,” Will says, scribbling furiously before pressing his palm into it. “And El closed the gate—I know she did, I saw it. But at the same time, my mom was trying to get it out of me. So what if El closed the gate _ before _ all the shadows returned to the Upside Down?” He raises his hand, and El looks from his charcoaled fingers to his face.

“So it’s been here the whole time,” she says. “Planning.”

“But why Billy?” Lucas asks.

“_If _ Billy,” Max asserts.

Will shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. It wanted me because of my Sight. For him… it could just be wrong place, wrong time.”

Max drags a hand down her face. “Guys, you’re acting like we know it’s him. El said it’s all just a feeling.”

“So let’s go check,” Mike suggests, as though it’s obvious. Maybe it is. “He’s supposed to be working today, right?”

* * *

“It’s _ weird_,” El insists, handing the binoculars back to Lucas. “Max, you have to admit it’s weird.”

Max glances around, her uneasy gaze landing on Will, but he just shrugs. He knows it probably isn’t fun to learn that your brother may be possessed, but… El’s suspicions have some merit. “I mean, just look at him. It’s a million degrees out, and he’s all covered up.”

“And he’s _ Billy_,” Lucas emphasizes. “_Covering up _ is not in his vocabulary.”

Mike nods. “The Mind Flayer likes it cold,” he points out. “But if he’s hiding in plain sight, this would be the best way to handle it.”

_ We can’t just attack him, _ El says. _ If it is the Mind Flayer, it’ll figure us out and probably beat us up. If it isn’t… we’re attacking a normal guy. An asshole, but still. _

“What if we run a test?” Will hears his voice distantly, the plan already running through his mind.

“What kind of test?” Max asks hesitantly. “Is it a _ run at him with superpowers _ test?”

Will snorts. “No.” He thinks it over for a second. “Well, not right away.”

“_What_?”

El grins, and he has a feeling she’s flipping through his storyboard of the trap in his brain. _ I like your style. _

* * *

“Hey, man,” Lucas says quietly, and Will turns around while struggling to balance some metal beams in his arms.

“What’s up?” he asks, and for a moment the ridiculousness of the question sets in. They’re building a sauna trap for Max’s evil older brother. What the hell.

Lucas fidgets a little before looking him in the eye. “I’m sorry. For ignoring you at the mall, and for letting Mike walk all over you like that during the game, and for… just not being the greatest friend recently.”

Will is a little taken aback. He hadn’t expected that—he’s still so angry at Mike that everything else is clouded. “It’s… it’s okay, Lucas.”

“No, it’s not!” Lucas insists. “Everything is different now and I _ hate _ it. I have a girlfriend and that’s great, but it’s so hard to balance time with her and with you guys—”

“You do better than Mike, and he doesn’t even have a girlfriend.”

“_Will_.” Lucas gives him a look. “Let me apologize, okay? Jesus.” He takes a breath. “I can’t apologize for whatever is up with Mike, but I am sorry. And your campaign was really cool, I’m serious, I want to finish it.”

“It’s okay, Lucas, really,” Will says, and he finds that he isn’t lying.

“Okay. Okay, good.” His shoulders slump, and Will thinks it looks like relief. “I’m going to do better. I radioed Dustin already, even, and he didn’t pick up, but…”

“Lucas,” Will laughs. “Seriously. Let’s just get this done, okay? The sooner we know what we’re dealing with, the better.”

* * *

_ I’m gonna kill someone, _ El says, and Will stifles a laugh.

_ What now? _ he asks, and he can practically _ hear _ her rolling her eyes.

_ Mike, _ she snorts. _ Who else? He’s so used to being… I don’t know. _

Will raises an eyebrow. _ Perfect. Like Nancy. Like their whole family. He’s used to being perfect and getting away with things. _

_ I don’t know about _ perfect_, _ El grumbles, _ but definitely the second thing. _ Her voice cuts out for a minute, then returns. _ Sorry, heard a lifeguard coming. Wasn’t him. What was going on with you and Mike earlier, anyway? _

_ What? _ he replies, feigning ignorance, but he knows he isn’t fooling her.

_ He was being a mouthbreather this morning, _ she acknowledges, _ but it was more than that for you. _ She waits for a beat, and when he doesn’t respond, she continues, _ you can’t lie to me, Will. _

He still doesn’t want to tell her. But she’s right—he _ could _ lie to her, but she would know. He’s never been good at hiding these things. _ He just… last night, before I felt the Mind Flayer, he said something to me. Threw something in my face that I’m… not proud of. And he was one of the only people who hadn’t done that. I never thought he would. _ He coughs, not wanting to have a breakdown in the janitor’s closet. Then he laughs a little. Funny._ But, uh, are you going to forgive him for… all that stuff with you? _

_ You mean the part where he doesn’t listen to me, doesn’t trust me, and isn’t being a good friend? _ She shakes her head in defeated amusement. _ Eventually. When he apologizes. _ She grins wryly. _ I love him, but he is very frustrating sometimes. _

_ Cheers to that, _ Will agrees glumly.

* * *

_ Ready? _

He nods, gesturing for Max and Lucas to step further back into the shadows. _ Showtime. _

Mike’s footsteps rapidly approach and he hurls himself into the alcove, eyes wide. He gives a thumbs up.

_ Okay, El, as soon as you see him, guide him into the sauna. _

_ Got it, _ she says, and sure enough, Will hears a wooden creak right after Billy’s shadow appears across the floor. His head snaps toward the sound.

“If this is a prank, you little shits, I’ll kill you!” Billy threatens, and Will hears Max’s breath catch in her throat. She claps a hand over her mouth and he glances back at her, worried, but she shakes her head at him.

_ What are you waiting for? _ El shouts. _ Go go go go go! _

He turns back and realizes that Billy has stepped into the sauna, and he charges forward as El flings her hand up and the door slams shut. He rams the metal rod through the handle, Lucas scrambling after him with the chain, and he points at the heat dial. “Max, turn it all the way up!”

She reaches for the knob and then gasps, flinching back the moment she touches it. “Ow!”

“Are you okay?” Lucas asks immediately, grabbing her hand to look at it.

“It shocked me,” she mumbles, and Will feels sorry for her but there isn’t enough time. He reaches out and wrenches the dial up all the way, trying to tune out Billy’s yelled threats.

“Now what?” Mike asks, eyes wide as they flick between El and Will.

Will grimaces. “Now we wait. See if he has a reaction.”

As if on cue, Billy slams his palm onto the glass panel before pressing his face against it. “Get me out of here, you assholes, I’m gonna fucking die in here!”

Max curls into Lucas, and for some reason it really sinks in for Will in this moment—Billy is a piece of shit. Not only is he potentially the Mind Flayer, but he’s hurt Max.

He knew before, kinda. Dustin has told the story of Steve’s fight with Billy a million times. He knows what Max did that night. But he somehow never realized it was _ that bad_. Just like he never realized his own father was _ that bad_.

_ Two hundred and climbing, _ El says nervously.

He tugs Max back by her shirt, because she’s shaking. “Max—”

“Max,” Billy says, and his tone suddenly softens. “Max, let me out. Please, let me out.”

And Max is a good person. A genuinely good person, Will knows it—El knows it, which just means Will believes it more. She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve to look so terrified yet so sorry as she leans away from Lucas to look at her brother.

“Max, _ get me the fuck out_!” Billy screams, the quiet shattering, and then the glass does, too.

“Shit!” Mike yells, his hand landing on Will’s wrist and yanking him back. “Max, get away from the door!”

Lucas wraps his arms around her and _ pulls_, and she’s lifted off of her feet and basically carried until she’s well behind El. Billy gets his arm through the window and over to the handle—Will jammed the bar in there pretty well, but Billy grasps on to it and it _ bends_, though he hisses as sparks flicker around his fingers. It’s electrified, somehow, but Will won’t question their luck right now.

“You’re gonna pay,” Billy growls, and he doesn’t sound human anymore. The hairs on the back of Will’s neck stand up when he spots the dark veins crawling up his skin.

“It’s him,” he says, and he can’t control the tremor in his voice. “It’s him. The Mind Flayer has him.”

Then the door flies open and everything goes to hell.

“Get back!” El yells, and her hand reaches behind her—Lucas and Max go skidding away. She raises her other hand in front of her, and Billy stumbles.

The reprieve doesn’t last long. He quickly regains his balance and steps forward again, and even El’s hold won’t keep him. She lets out a grunt as she thrusts her fists forward and Billy flies back, into the sauna door. It dents and Will winces.

“We have to get out of here,” Mike says, and Will startles—he’d forgotten Mike was next to him.

“What are you doing?” he murmurs, his tongue feeling heavy. “Get away from him, get back!”

Mike gives him this long, hard stare. “You have to too, then,” he says. “Tell El the plan out of here.”

_ El. _ Will whirls back around in time to see Billy lunge for her again, and she manages to deflect him. He growls and picks up the metal pole, coming at her again, and El _ howls _.

There’s no other word for it—it’s like all the winds have been expelled from her lungs, and Will nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels a clammy hand on his wrist. Mike’s eyes are wide—scared.

“We have to _ go_,” he reiterates. “El—”

“I _ know_!” she snaps, taking a few steps back as Billy staggers back to his feet. Her face is bloody, smeared red, and she quickly wipes her sleeve under her nose. “Mike, get Max and Lucas out of here.”

“_And Will_,” Mike shouts, like he’s angry at _ her_.

“Yes, fine!” El yells. “Will, get him out of here!”

He obeys, tearing his hand from Mike’s and pushing him back instead. “El, what about you—watch out!”

His warning comes too late, and she turns around just in time for Billy’s hand to reach out and wrap around her neck.

“El!” several voices shout, and Will thinks it might be all of them.

El’s brain explodes into abstract, oxygen-deprived thought—colors and fears swirling around in his vision, and he can see how badly she’s flailing, but her limbs aren’t doing anything, not transmitting telekinetic pushes. Billy isn’t getting tossed around anymore.

He somehow senses Mike taking a step forward, preparing to run at Billy, but something deep in Will’s mind says _ no _. He will not lose Mike. Not like this. In friendship, in trust—better that than dead.

Something in his spine _ cracks _ and Mike is knocked off of his feet, and before Will even knows what he’s doing he’s marching forward.

“Let her _ go_,” he demands, and he didn’t think it was possible to smell shadows but that’s what he’s doing. It’s like he’s back on that field again, drowning in blackness, that ink seeping through _ all _ of his senses, but this time he _ wants _ it. He reaches out a fist, feeling the tell-tale tingling of pins and needles as if his hand isn’t really his own. He opens his fingers and Billy’s hand mimics him, El collapsing to the floor.

Billy stares at his own hand for a split-second before refocusing on Will. “You,” he says, and Will recognizes the voice—it’s not Billy’s, not anymore. It tilts Billy’s head. “You _ and _ her in one place, on the same plane.” Will hears the sick fascination in its voice as it gazes down at El’s gasping form.

“Don’t touch her,” he demands, as if he knows what the hell he’s doing.

It grins using Billy’s mouth, and Will notices that his gums are black. “This is much bigger than her, you know.” He reaches for her, and that same _ crack _from before echoes again, from his chest this time.

“No!” he yells, and with a burst of lightning the room turns white.

The ringing in his ears fades quickly along with the light, and when it does he can hear El’s whimpers. He darts forward and collects her in his arms, dragging her away from Billy as it pushes Billy’s body back onto his feet. It’s persistent, he’ll give it that.

“You can’t win,” it says. “Give up now and maybe I’ll spare your friends. Your _ mother_.”

Will grits his teeth. “Don’t touch my friends. Don’t touch my sister. Do _ not _ touch my mother.”

It quirks an eyebrow, and without a word, lifts a hand—a hand that is blackened and burned, and it dissolves into a smoke that seeps across the floor and curls around El’s ankles. She makes another pained noise, squirming in Will’s arms to try to get away from it.

Her hand brushes over his neck and shocks him, a spark lighting the back of his neck. _ I understand now, _ she says, her voice unbroken. _ I trust you. _

Her eyes are wide, and Will can see that she’s thinking about her radio. _ The radio_. The puzzle clicks. “Stay _ away_!” he screams, El’s fingernails digging into his skin, and with the loudest _ bang _he’s ever heard, Billy crashes through the brick wall in a flurry of sparks.

“Holy shit,” Mike says, and Will realizes he’s been repeating it for a solid minute as Will hunches over El, on his knees. “Holy shit.”

“He’s… running,” Max whispers, scrambling over to El. “He’s running away.”

“Jesus,” Lucas mutters, his eyes tracing over the bruise that’s already forming around El’s neck. “We need to get her home.”

Max looks up at him. “Not the hospital?”

Lucas gestures helplessly. “How the hell are we gonna explain it? What are they gonna do?”

“He’s right,” Mike says, voice cracking. At least he’s saying something other than _ holy shit_. “We need to go.”

_ Can you walk? _ he asks, and she bites her lip.

_ I guess I have to, _ she says, and she only wobbles on her feet a little bit as Will hoists her up. She grins, suddenly—minute but still there, a little teasing. _ Sister? _

He matches her with a grimace. _ I mean, it’s true. _

She shrugs and adjusts her arm around him, yelping a little when a pop of static ripples down her hand. _ Yeah, are we going to talk about this? _

Will half-shrugs, raising his free hand in front of his face. When he wiggles his fingers, blue-white sparks skip across his palm before disappearing. “I… don’t know.”

Mike is so pale he looks like he might faint. “Honestly, this explains a lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapters 8 and 9 are gonna be the big ones, y'all. brace yourselves, I know I will.
> 
> comments and kudos are, as always, appreciated.  
find me on tumblr, my main is [@willelbyers](https://willelbyers.tumblr.com) and my writing blog is [@lowriting](https://lowriting.tumblr.com)!

**Author's Note:**

> the next chapter will be up as soon as possible. I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> reviews are, as always, appreciated.  
find me on tumblr, my main is [@perseusjaxon](https://perseusjaxon.tumblr.com) and my writing blog is [@lowriting](https://lowriting.tumblr.com)!


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